


teeth which bite, wounds that never heal

by saintsurvivor



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, Canon-Typical Violence, Creepy Murdoc (MacGyver TV 2016), Death Threats, Flashbacks, Graphic Description, Graphic Medical Trauma, Gunshot Wounds, Headaches & Migraines, Hospitalization, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Procedures, Mugging, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Jack Dalton (MacGyver 2016), Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Sick Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Stabbing, Suicidal Thoughts, Team as Family, Unreliable Narrator, Whump, passive suicidal thoughts, past parental death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27021685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsurvivor/pseuds/saintsurvivor
Summary: There’s a disturbing trend that’s been showing lately. Or, Murdoc will never be a hero, but he likes being owed.(Or, five times Murdoc somehow knows that Mac is in danger or ill and helps him, because Mac's life is his to claim.)
Relationships: Angus MacGyver & Murdoc (MacGyver TV 2016), Angus MacGyver/Murdoc (MacGyver TV 2016), Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 44
Kudos: 143





	1. their breath is a gift, to you

**Author's Note:**

> **#1:** Hi guys! This is actually my first ever MacGyver 2016 fic, and I hope I do it justice, in both writing and characterization, especially since we have such amazing fics in this fandom. This is planned to be at least five chapters long, since it's kind of a bastardized version of a five and one fic, and additional tags will be added as chapters are added. As well as the violence, since this is literally a five chaptered fic of all the times Murdoc saves Mac's life by being his creepy beepy self, we have Murdoc being his - well, his creepy beepy self.  
>  **#2:** This is actually the first fic I've been able to write in quarantine. I just haven't had the motivation, and then I started watching MacGyver and reading fics of it, and my wheels starting turning, so, like I said before; I hope my characterization is good, and that I haven't completely fucked it up! :)  
>  **#3:** Come find me on tumblr at [wendhigos](http://wendhigos.tumblr.com)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Hush for me, sweet Angus,” Is murmured into his ear. “Now, this is going to be particularly unpleasant for - well, mostly for you. I’m very much going to enjoy this. I’d say it’s not very often I get to be arms deep within a target, but well, liar liar pants on fire!”_

Deukmejian Wilderness Park was quiet and calm at six am, and Mac found that it suited him just fine. Sunlight was just starting to peek across the tops of the trees spiralling towards the pinkening sky, and his breath came out in fits and starts of white plumps. 

Running was a pastime Mac had always found enjoyable, something that let his mind wander even as his body went through the motions, feeling the pull of muscles and the stretch of his clothing. He exhaled deeply as he came to the crest of a hill on one of the highest running trails, drawing a long gulp from his water bottle. He inhaled deeply after, hands behind his head and his water bottle kept safe between his knees as he stretched tall like the tree’s surrounding him.

He paused for a moment, feeling the left over aching of his left lower ribs as he twisted and stretched lightly. He pressed a hand delicately against the bruises he knew sprawled across his skin like ink and sighed. 

The last mission, three days past and a nightmare in the making, had ended with Jack and him being able to gather the Intel required, though Mac would rather never have to see _or_ swallow another USB stick ever again. Despite it being a successful outcome, both Jack and him hadn't escaped their fair share of injuries; however they had been nothing more serious than bruises and cuts, which Mac had long since discovered were a warriors lot. 

Because of this, Mac had felt more than healthy to go for his usual two mile run at half five, and he'd been glad to get out of the house. Missions had been boots to the ground running, recently; back to back and non stop in a way that even Mac, whom Jack had, on innumerable occasions, called an unnatural workaholic, found relentless, and for all that Mac was happy for some downtime, staying in the house had made him irritable.

Mac sighed again, rolling his shoulders back and stretching his chest out as he started up again, feeling the reassuring pull of his calves as he started jogging slowly. To the right of him, an early morning bird gave a long, low shrill, and Mac had to keep fighting to breathe around his grin. He hadn't felt this relaxed for a long while, and though he knew he should expect a text any time soon from someone, he couldn't help but wish it could last all day. 

_Maybe I should take up cycling_ , he thought, controlling his breathing as he rounded a corner, dodging another early jogger who smiled at him. Mac smiled back politely, feeling the thrum of his lyricless music through the headphones. Jack and Riley had teamed up to put an absolutely god awful playlist on his phone for him, and Mac had decided he liked his ears and hearing enough that he wouldn't touch it. He'd saw that Riley had put at least one song by _Slipknot_.

He doesn’t know where Riley got her god awful taste in music, only that he wishes she wouldn’t inflict it on him as much as she did. Of course, Mac thinks she only did it as much as she did because she knew how much it annoyed him to have to flick through so many songs to get to ones he actually wanted to listen to.

As his beat faded out and was replaced by another one, heavy with quiet drums and the slow thrum of a guitar, Mac rounded the trail again, skipping a little to avoid a small pile of leaves. He could see the sky lightening even more, becoming a pastel pink as the sun slowly rose higher, casting deep shadows between the trees.. He breathed deeply and-

He chokes on his own breath, trying to fight against the muscular arm wrapped tightly around his throat. He can hear heavy breathing in his ear, and his feet leave the floor, leaving him stranded with his feet kicking the air. He can’t get a grip, instinctively grappling with the strangers arm around his throat, making it hard to breathe.

He tries to wheeze out something, whether it’s a warning or a plea, Mac doesn’t exactly know. All he knows is that he can’t breathe, and that a massive hand is now pressing against his already injured left side, pressing strongly on his ribs. He imagines he can hear them _crack._

“ _No!”_ Mac manages to wheeze, kicking backwards and managing to hit the guy in the knee, but even his hardest kicks don’t do anything. The man grunts, and drags Mac of the running trail, just into the trees. Mac manages to lift himself up on the man’s arm just a little, managing to grab the slightest bit of air. 

He casts his eyes around, panicked and wheezy, already running out of air, but there’s no one around. Maybe this is what he gets for going for runs so early in the morning. 

He kicks back again, tries to direct them towards a tree, maybe he can kick off it and grab the upper hand, or even shove the guy against it. But there’s a hand now, heading towards the waistband of his running leggings. He starts struggling even more, trying to shove his elbows back even as he tries to keep his throat from pressing harder against the guys incredibly strong arm.

“Fuckin’- keep _still_ , you little brat!” Is growled in his ear, and Mac grunts, kicking back again. The hand is at his waistband now, thankfully just trying to rummage in any pockets he can find. His earbuds are ripped out of his ears when the man can’t find anything other than his ipod, and the man growls in frustration. 

Mac squirms even more, managing to get a good bite from the man’s forearm; you can’t be choosy when you’re apparently being mugged. The man yowls, breath a white plump in the dawn air. 

“You shit! You’re gonna pay for that-” Is hissed in his ear, and Mac can’t help the gasping whine that escapes him when something cold and searing thunks against the left side of his ribs, sudden heat washing over him as it’s yanked back out-

The arm at his throat is suddenly gone after one last breath taking press against his neck, gagging him on the liquid suddenly flooding his mouth, and then Mac is weightless. He crashes against the dirt and the leaves, his brain feeling like it’s been shaken. He doesn’t even have the breath to breathe, lungs empty even as his chest seems to sink in, ribs grating against each other. 

He sputters on his own blood, arms heavy as he tries to press it against what seems to be an actual _hole_ in his left ribs, a sort of sucking wound that he vaguely knows he should be more worried about. He spits out his mouthful of blood, staining the autumn leaves, feeling his heart racing. 

He’s so fucking cold, shivering with it now. There’s a brisk breeze that he hadn’t felt when he was running, and it’s making it harder to think. His eyes are blurring, awash with red and he’s gasping-

He can’t _breathe_ -

His hands fall from his left side, slick with blood, his chest is collapsing, heart thundering. He tilts onto his back, arching as he tries so hard to just fucking _breathe._ His hands scrabble at the forest floor, gasping. His back clears the floor, even as the movement pulls at the gaping wound and his bruised ribs. His throat seems to have just collapsed in on itself, he can already feel the bruise. Fuck, he can’t _breathe, please-_

Blackness falls into his blurred vision, with pale skin and that _smile_.

“Hello, Angus,” He hears. “Oh deary me, you _are_ in a bit of a pickle, aren’t we?”

Mac chokes on his own blood and Murdoc laughs, even as he kneels beside Mac. 

A warm hand, covered in leather, pats Mac on the cheek, and Mac barely knows how he has the energy to lift his eyes to look at Murdoc, thrown into shadows with the slowly rising sun. He’s got a smile on his face as he watches Mac squirm, watches the curve of his back, the kick of his legs as Mac just tries to _breathe_.

“Now now, boy scout,” Murdoc murmurs, and suddenly hands are on Mac’s chest, beneath his arms. He vaguely feels Murdoc ripping his thin jacket off, leaving him with his thin tank top beneath. He can feel himself being lifted, feels the searing ache of his stab wound, the way his lung seems to _twist_. “Next time you want my attention, you really should just give me a call. Losing all this blood is _not_ good for your continuing health.”

“ _Mu-Murdoc-_ ” Mac honestly doesn’t know how he has the energy to talk, feels the words stutter out with the mouthful of blood he can’t swallow. He’s lifted further, legs still trying to kick against the forest floor. 

He hears Murdoc give that low chuckle, because of course he’d find Mac choking on his own blood and not being able to breathe _amusing_. 

“Come along, boy scout, we’ll get you all patched up in no time, hmm? Might not even have to give you CPR!” Murdoc hums as he settles Mac against his chest, and Mac knows that he doesn’t imagine the frown that passes over Murdoc’s face as a hand presses against his aching side. 

He cries out, arching into Murdoc’s chest at the awful pressure. Fuck, it’s like Murdoc is arm’s deep in his stomach, like he’s pulling out his _lungs_ and _twisting_ them. 

“Hush for me, sweet Angus,” Is murmured into his ear. “Now, this is going to be particularly unpleasant for - well, mostly for you. I’m very much going to enjoy this. I’d say it’s not very often I get to be arms deep within a target, but well, liar liar pants on fire!”

Mac chokes, can’t even reach for the image Murdoc is probably trying to give him. He can’t even scream, hands fisting against Murdoc’s black jeans, arching into the killer’s chest. He feels one of Murdoc’s knees come up to put pressure on the stab wound, breath coming out in a wheeze as Murdoc jostles him more onto his chest.

A hand snakes up to his throat, and Mac panics, tries to get away even as another hand presses against his left side. Murdoc’s legs clamp over his, and Mac struggles further, kicking them out and trying to let out a thin scream. Nobody’s around apart from Murdoc anyway, and Murdoc has heard enough of Mac’s screams.

“I said _hush,_ sweetheart, listen to me.” Murdoc hisses at him, mouth pressed right against his ear. 

Mac whines, mouth gaping and trying so hard to breathe. He can’t even be ashamed of the way he presses into Murdoc’s hands, he’s scared and so panicked. He wants Jack, _someone_ , but it’s Murdoc here, Murdoc whose helping him, despite the last time they parted, it was to Murdoc saying that he’d gladly slit Mac throat to navel. That Mac’s life was _his_.

“Now, I need you to be the goodest boy you can be, boy scout, because I need to shove a dressing on your little stab wound, otherwise what I’m going to have to do next is going to be even more unpleasant than it already is.” 

Mac dearly wants to tell Murdoc to get on with it, to cut the theatrics and fucking _do it_ -

He arches, crying out as much as he can when Murdoc _rips_ the bottom of his running top, blood having already dried it to his ribs and abdomen. Murdoc’s hand comes down from his throat, skirts across his chest and something large and sticky and _hurting_ is literally slapped against his injury, seemingly no longer a sucking wound, just a fucking _awful_ one. Because his lungs still feel twisted, and his heart feels three times larger than normal.

Murdoc snakes a hand up to his throat again, a gentle caress that Mac can’t even begin to think means, because it’s lifting his chin up, and it lets just that bit more of air in that Mac can’t even start to feel embarrassed that he leans further into Murdoc’s chest and shoulder, that he _lets_ Murdoc manhandle him like this, that he _lets_ Murdoc cradle him against his chest with barely a fight.

He can only see the bottom of Murdoc’s jaw, clenched tight with Mac’s own blood somehow smeared across it, and, beyond that, the slowly rising sun and the tops of the trees swaying in that brisk breeze. 

He can, as if from far away, hear Murdoc rustling with something to the side, and then Murdoc’s hands are at his collarbones, the slick edge of a knife against his skin. Mac doesn’t even have the energy to flinch, only lets out the smallest of whines against his slowly bruising throat.

Murdoc uses the tip of his hunting knife to rip the rest of Mac’s running shirt, dropping it next to them after. Mac wheezes a whine out as, after, Murdoc’s hand slips back up to his throat, fingertips clenching down on Mac’s jaw, tipping it backwards. Murdoc’s thumb puts the slightest of pressure against Mac’s Adam's apple, and then his carotid artery. 

“Sh, shhh, darling, it’s going to be all over soon, just let daddy stab you _juuuust_ a little-” Murdoc murmurs against his ear, even as he draws Mac’s head up again, digging his thumb into Mac’s throat to feel the whine Mac gives around his struggling breaths. He can probably feel the way Mac is trying so _desperately_ to breathe, how Mac can’t even struggle against the legs locked around his own, keeping him pinned like a butterfly.

“You look even more delectable like this, covered in blood as you are.” Murdoc tells him conversationally, as if Mac isn’t bleeding out in his arms in the middle of the woods. Mac’s back arches further, head hitting against Murdoc’s collarbone as he tries to breathe around the blood in his mouth. His left side is sunken and stuttering, and he can’t help the way his hands tighten into fists against Murdoc’s jeans, legs kicking out and arching further to just get _one breath_.

“If I end up stabbing you a little more than intended, boy scout, just know that I tried not too, but honestly, that little _arch_ \- should definitely do that again-” Mac chokes again, chest sunken and heart too big for his ribs, feeling the grate against each other. Fingers are pressing harshly against his chest, digging between the spaces of his ribs, blood is filling his mouth, his _lungs-_

Then, suddenly, with a starburst of pain, he can _breathe_ , lung reinflating, and feeling like his ribs are suddenly pressing themselves back together. Murdoc crows loudly, and he keeps a steady, _steady_ , hand on the syringe he’d shoved into Mac’s intercostal rib space, plunger discarded by his knife. Mac doesn’t even care, just gives a wheezy breath of relief and lets his head rest back on Murdoc’s chest and shoulders, even if his hands are still tightly gripped around Murdoc’s jeans.

“Well, Angus,” Murdoc says, petting over Mac’s throat and using the same hand to tilt Mac’s chin up, fingers curling around his jaw almost _gently_ to press a strange kiss to Mac’s blood and sweat soaked hair. “We should definitely do this again, especially the bit where you silently begged me for help.”

Mac can’t help the way he presses into Murdoc’s warm touch, even if his hands are covered in leather gloves and Mac’s own blood; he’s cold, and Murdoc has been the first gentle touch he’s had outside of missions. If he wasn’t so woozy with blood loss, he’d probably hate himself for it. 

Murdoc is almost _gentle_ with how he lifts Mac from between his legs after securing the syringe against his chest, hands careful as he lies Mac against the leaf strewn floor, facing the running trail. Mac watches with dazed eyes and an aching head as Murdoc slips out of his bloodied leather coat, and lays it over Mac, avoiding his wounds as best he can. Mac’s mind can’t even begin to figure out what Murdoc’s end game is.

“Now, here, have this to keep you warm whilst your team hunts you down; as much as I like admiring you in your skimpy running clothes, we don’t want you dying from shock after I’ve had to stab you, do we?”

Mac wheezes, and he doesn’t even feel ashamed at the way he clutches at Murdoc’s leather coat, or even flinches at the hand Murdoc touches his face with, smearing blood and tears from beneath Mac’s heavy lidded eyes. Something that sounds like a camera shutter goes off and Mac flinches. Murdoc places something in his hand.

“Don’t forget, sweet Angus, your life belongs to me, so don’t make getting stabbed by someone else a pastime!”

Murdoc winks, and then he’s gone.

The sun is fully risen, and Mac wheezes his next breath as the phone in his hand Murdoc gave him starts ringing.

  
  


Mac would like to say that he doesn’t know where he is when he wakes up, but Mac makes a concentrated effort not to lie to himself when possible.

Something is resting against his hand, and he can feel the familiar weight of a nasal cannula against his cheek and nose. It reminds him, strangely, of a leather gloved hand, the thumb gently touching beneath his eyes, smearing across his mouth. His eyes flutter, and he flinches against the bright light of Phoenix Medbay. 

He must make a noise, because the small weight in his hand leaves, and the next time he attempts to open his eyes, the lights are dim and no longer hammering a pickaxe into Mac’s brain.

“Mac?” A worried voice says to his right. “Sorry about that, hoss, all turned down now.” 

“Jack,” Mac tries to croak, throat dry and everything aching fiercely. He tries to lift his left arm, but Jack’s fingers wrap around his wrist gently, and push it back down onto the hospital bed, the sheets scratchy beneath his fingers.

“Watch yourself, man, got yourself plenty of drips this time. You’re on the good shit.” Jack tells him. Mac wheezes a weak laugh, turning his hand slightly so he can wrap his fingers, as weak as they feel, around Jack’s palm. 

“How- How long?” He has to pause, trying to get oxygen in his lungs. He shifts a little, trying to get comfortable, and ends up gasping in pain, something tugging at his left side, bone deep and _hurting._

“Hey, hey, careful, Mac! Don’t go pullin’ anything out, I’ve seen enough of your blood to last me a couple of life times now. That, and your veins are shit as always. Gotta drink more, man, nevermind them having to put a chest drain in you.”

Mac looks at him, he knows that tone, the way Jack rambles when he’s nervous, when he’s scared of his mind. Jack’s a motormouth at the best of times, but there’s always something in his voice that lets Mac know how close Jack is to maybe losing it, or exploding.

Jack still hasn’t let go of his hand, and Mac’s grateful. 

“Jack?” Mac says again. Jack doesn’t say anything for the longest time, only seems to slump more against the bed rails; he looks like he’s aged decades. Jack’s fingers tighten around Mac’s, almost to the point of aching. “Jack, talk to me, man.”

Jack sighs, and when he looks up, his eyes are bruised and mouth frowning like it always does whenever Mac does something to end up in the hospital.

“That was too close, hoss,” Jack whispers, he seems to have aged another decade even as Mac looks at him. The hand holding his tightens again, and Jack’s free one grips the back of Mac’s neck, carefully pulling Mac forward just a little. Jack presses their foreheads together, and Mac shudders out a sigh. “That was way too fuckin’ close.”

“I’m sorry.” Mac whispers, in the space between them. Nothing ever seems to scare Jack more than Mac being hurt, or Jack not being able to do anything about it.

“You’ve been out for three days, comin’ in and out-” Jack exhales, like it _hurts_. 

“I’m sorry.” Mac says, and Jack shudders, fingers clenching slightly around Mac’s hair.

“When I got that photo-” Jack breathes out carefully, and he lifts his forehead away from Mac’s only to touch them together again. Jack’s fingers curl further into his hair, and Mac can’t help the way his fingers curl into Jack’s henley. “When I saw you, fucking, _bleeding_ -and that bastard Murdoc-”

“Murdoc saved me,” Mac chokes out, he can still feel the blood in his mouth, the way Murdoc’s hands had curled around his throat, his jaw. He can’t help but flush at the way he barely remembers leaning into Murdoc’s touch, shame suddenly flooding his stomach as he thinks of the way his fingers had clenched desperately around Murdoc’s leather coat. “He somehow _knew_ where I was. He-”

Jack pulls back, loosens his grip on Mac’s palm to cup both of them around Mac’s jaw. 

“Wouldn’t be surprised if the bastard had orchestrated it.” Jack grits out, and though he leans back to sit down, one of his hands never leaves Mac’s.

“Wait-” Mac frowns, his brain apparently isn’t working on all cylinders, his mind suddenly catching on to what Jack had just said. “ _Photo?_ What photo?”

Jack’s jaw clenches, he looks as if he’s desperately trying either not to cry or punch something. He doesn’t say anything for the longest time, long enough that Mac frowns and is about to say something, but Jack ends up pulling out his phone instead, knuckles white around the heavy duty case.

Jack stares silently down at the screen for a moment, as if he has to physically gather the energy, before he clenches his jaw again and hands his phone to Mac.

Mac stares down at it, and he can’t help but think he’s looking down at a stranger, blonde haired and blue eyed like him, but someone so far apart from him that it _truly_ can’t be him. 

The stranger in the photo is bloody and pale, pain and terror stark in his bloodied face. But it _must_ be him, because he remembers that leather coat curled around him, the warmth that he couldn’t help but sink into, the way he’d lent into the gloved palm that was cupping his jaw, smearing blood.

“I don’t- why would he-?” Mac trips on his own words, chokes on his breath like he had before in that forest.

“‘Cuz he’s a sick bastard, that’s why,” Jack growls out. His gaze very carefully doesn’t touch upon the photo. “I swear hoss, I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him.”

As if on cue, Jack’s phone let out a cheery little jingle of a text message incoming.

_hope you like my little souvenir, angus! you just looked so beautiful, i couldn’t help myself ;)_

Mac doesn’t get to see if Murdoc had written anything else, because Jack takes it from him, wrestling it from the case. Mac can’t help but flinch at the snap of the phone beneath Jack’s boots.

“I swear to you, hoss, he ain’t ever gonna touch you again.”

Mac can’t help thinking that it’s a lost cause already.


	2. sweet, fearful dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“This is just depressing really, you’re usually much funner when you’re in pain, you were definitely delectable last time I had you in my arms, bleeding and whimpering, and oh- your squirming. I’m glad however, that you heeded my advice and didn’t get stabbed this time, especially in Budapest.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **#1:** welcome to chapter two! This is basically just a love note to my hc of Mac with migraines because why not! Murdoc is his creepy beepy self, and Mac honestly just wants a nap.  
>  **#2:** Come find me at [wendhigos](https://wendhigos.tumblr.com)

Mac dearly wished he was any place but here right now.

 _Here_ , being on the Phoenix Jet, with Riley and Jack next to him and Bozer on the intercom, having just finished a mission in Budapest that he’d dearly love to never experience again. It’s been a week since he’s managed to sleep in his own bed, or even in general, and he’d love nothing better than to down at least three pints of water, lie down in bed and sleep for _maybe_ more than eight hours.

Mac sighed, clenching his eyes shut even as he let his head fall back onto the back of his seat. He didn’t know if it was stress, or just wanting to go home, but his head was _killing_ him, a deep drum pounding behind his eyes, that makes lightning slash behind them every time he even thinks about moving his head. He’s already gulped down two water bottles, and even that hasn’t touched it. He’d hoped it was just going to be a dehydration headache, but of course it couldn’t be.

He’s torn from the pounding that’s slowly lacing to the base of his skull by a hand gently jostling his knee, and someone kneeling in front of him. A hand grabs his, laces their fingers together.

“Alright there, hoss?” Jack murmurs, and a blissfully cool palm rests against the back of his neck. Mac lets his head fall forward, squinting his eyes forward. Jack’s the one kneeling in front of him, his cool palm resting against Mac’s neck and rubbing circles against the jut of Mac’s jaw, Riley leans forward too, gripping his hand in hers. “You ain’t lookin’ so good.”

“I’m fine,” Mac says, hair falling into his eyes and blocking the too bright lights of the jet. “Just… achy.”

“I’m with Jack, you look like you’re gonna hurl.” Riley tells him, and Mac snorts a laugh even as he squints in pain from the motion. “That, and we all know that as soon as you say you’re fine, you’re really not, Mac.”

Mac hums and he presses himself further against Jack’s still miraculously chilly palm, feeling Jack's other hand pressing against the other side of his jaw. A thumb smeared across the scrunched furrow of his brow. On the intercom, Bozer has fallen silent.

“Seems like you got a helluva headache there, brother.” Bozer says, barely audible from how far Mac had tried to get away from anything making noises. He’s even muted his phone and hidden it beneath his thigh, which he never generally does otherwise Matty - _and_ Jack - has a fit at him for being unreachable. 

“Not too bad, Boze; like I said, achy.”

“And being just _‘achy_ ’ is making you look like you’re about to hurl your wheaties all over us? I don’t think so, hoss.” Jack says, and he sounds so disbelieving that Riley laughs as quietly as she can, hand over her mouth. 

Mac gave a wavering smile, slouches even further into his seat. His eyes clenched shut tightly, he pulled his hand out from Riley’s to fist them into the fabric of his levi’s; even just the sensation of clothes on his skin hurts, everything too bright and too abrasive. He feels like he’s been scrubbed raw with sandpaper.

“Now, mister ‘just fine’, we’re gonna get you some pills, and some water, and _then_ , your mission if you choose to accept it; sleep the next four hours until we got home and we can all go sleep in our own beds.” 

“Sounds fantastic.” Mac replies, and he should probably be more concerned than he is at how slurred his voice is. 

He must have dozed off for even just a few moments, because quicker than he thought, Riley is pressing another water bottle and four pills into his hand. He doesn’t even hesitate in downing them, gulping down half the water. God, he wants to go home. He’s at least got his heavy duty migraine injections there, but because it’s been a while since he’d had an episode, he hadn’t thought to bring them, never mind the fact that they have the tendency to knock him for a loop.

“C’mon, kiddo, let’s get you comfy,” Jack slowly pulls him down onto the two seater, keeping a hand pressed against Mac’s neck to slowly guide him into a stretched out position that doesn’t jostle his head. A hand slowly cards through his hair, still cool and gentle. Mac opens his eyes, squinting through the flannel Jack’s just placed over them. “We’ll wake you up when we’re almost there, yeah? Matty’s gonna let you debrief later on, so we can get you straight home and have your meds.”

“Thanks, Jack,” Mac mutters, and he has enough energy to catch Jack’s wrist in his hand. He frowns at how his fingers trembled. “Just don’t wanna be too much trouble.”

“Nah, hoss, you can never be too much trouble.” Jack looked a little like he’d been gutted, but a tremulous smile is still aimed at Mac. 

“Hmm, gonna go sleep now…” The painkillers have hit him now, and though the pounding hasn’t stopped yet, with what looks like a giant black hole - _aura_ , he thinks - floating in the middle of his vision, he’s less achy now that he could probably sleep. As he slowly slips away, he feels what might be Riley placing a jacket over him.

He’s in the in between stage, slowly sliding into sleep but still not quite yet, when he hears Jack and Riley talking quietly between themselves. 

“...found the guy that stabbed Mac the other month,” Riley is murmuring to Jack, sounding like they were almost underwater. “Dead, in his apartment.”

“Yeah,” Jack sounds like he’s rubbing a hand over his face, scratching his hair. Mac tries not to move, not trying to listen in, but unable to stop listening. “Ain’t told Mac yet, dunno how to explain-”

“What, that we know _Murdoc_ was the one to hunt him down and slaughter him like an animal?” Riley sounds like she doesn’t blame him, like she wanted to be the one to do it. Mac might be imagining things though. “And that we think he did it _because_ he hurt Mac?”

“Fuck, now I owe Murdoc one, bastard.” Jack sounds so furious with it, and Riley muffles her guilty laughter, Mac thinks with her hand.

“We all do,” She says. “As long as he ain’t goin’ after Mac or us, I don’t think I mind this side of him-”

Mac moves his head, trying to get comfortable and so misses the rest of the conversation, lost to static in the corners of his eyes and the way his hearing fuzzes over because of the pain, only hearing what sounds like Jack and Riley’s voices as they settle in for the rest of the flight.

He loses himself to the darkness plaguing the rest of his vision, feeling his phone buzzing because of a text beneath his thigh. 

  
  


Jack, true to his word, wakes him when they’re about half an hour out from Los Angeles, if only because Jack has seen more than his fair share of what Mac is like when he’s coming down with a probable migraine, and how drowsy he can get.

He doesn’t really remember touch down, or even Jack and Riley gathering their stuff and helping him down the steps from the jet, only knows that the aura in front of his eyes is slowly getting _bigger_ , and the time he’s got for being able to knock this off so it isn’t as bad as it can get is shrinking incredibly fast, if not having disappeared entirely. 

Thankfully, he was allowed to down some Migraleve pills that the medics kept in the first aid kit, and that had alleviated some of the pain in his head, even though it’s now moved to wrapping like a band around his skull, down into his jaw, his nape, and making the muscles of his upper body seize.

Just what he needs, a migraine _and_ tooth pain at the same time. God, he’d rather shoot himself in the head and be done with it.

“C’mon, kid,” Jack tells him, arm around his shoulders and hefting both their bags over his shoulders. “Matty’s gonna let me take you home and get you all sorted, yeah?”

“Matty is a lifesaver.” Mac mutters, leaning heavily into Jack’s side and wishing that, for once, they lived somewhere colder and with _less sun_. Jack makes a noise in the back of his throat and gently shoves his sunglasses over Mac’s eyes.

“Gonna get wrinkles there, hoss, with all that squintin’,” Jack cracks, steering Mac towards his GTO. “Should put you down in R&D more often if you keep doin’ it.”

Mac doesn’t say anything, can’t even give a weak smile with how his muscles are _aching_. He cringes as the heat of the GTO makes the leather uncomfortable and makes his head pound even more. God, if he drinks any more water, his organs are gonna be floating in his body like a bath. 

Jack is, thankfully, a good enough driver even with Los Angeles traffic, that it’s a smooth ride, even with Mac trying his hardest not to vomit all over the GTO and make Jack mad. He simply lets his head loll back, eyes clenched tightly and fists even more tightly around the half empty water bottle.

He must’ve dozed off again, because in what feels like no time at all, Jack and him are pulling up in front of his house, and Jack won’t even let him pick up his go bag. He’s on the very edge of puking his guts up as Jack guides him into the relatively cool of the house, go bag simply dropped on the floor inside of the front door.

“C’mon kiddo, let's get you comfy and in bed, yeah? Can’t have any more painkillers for another four hours though, so don’t you even dare, don’t wanna come back to your comatose self high on prescription painkillers.” 

Mac doesn’t even have the energy to grumble, just goes in the direction that Jack is guiding him to with a hand on his lower back, barely opening his eyes against the shadows that, though dark, are too _bright_. Where’s a creepy serial killer slash sociopath slash stalker when you need one, they could scoop out his eyeballs and be done with it. He’d even thank them sincerely for it.

“Do you want me to stay?” Jack asks quietly, and Mac’s grateful but groans out a quiet refusal. As much as he’d love for Jack to stay, sometimes even the movement of another person is enough to set his head off. “You sure? I don’t mind textin’ Matty and explainin’.”

“S’okay, gonna be borin’ anyway,” Mac slurs as he falls face forward onto Jack’s shoulder, making a whining noise against the cooled leather of his jacket. _God_ , it feels so good. “Just gonna-gonna sleep…” 

He eventually just slumps forward, and Jack makes a panicked noise in the back of this throat.

“Hey, hey, let's get you outta these clothes, honey, before you even think of crashin’.”

He manages to coordinate himself into stripping out of his clothes, Jack having to help with lifting his shirt and discarding his levi’s fully as even just bending down and moving his arms above his head is a recipe for disaster and has him swallowing down his nausea. 

But he can’t help how he ends up curling over himself, hands fisted tightly into his probably too long hair and groaning as something _ripples_ across his temples, the first of several tears squeezing out against his lashes, mouth open and panting through the agony. Jack ends up almost wrestling Mac into a pair of overly large sweatpants and the softest shirt Mac has tucked in his drawers.

Jack frowns down at it, because whilst Jack doesn’t know every piece of clothing Mac has, this is something he’s never seen before or thought Mac would ever buy. It’s a soft black cashmere henley, long sleeved and too big on what looks like on purpose, especially with the way it drapes so it shows Mac’s too noticeable collarbones. He shrugs, thinks maybe it’s something Mac brought on a whim.

Jack doesn’t speak, only guides Mac down again, so he can sprawl against his pillow and huddle beneath his duvet, the black out curtains apparently being drawn when the room is appropriately shadowed. 

He stays there, huddled and shaking with the pain, blinded by it and the thrum thrumming of the car crash in his head. He doesn’t even realize when Jack leaves a glass of water and a trash can by his bedside, nor the way Jack hovers at his side for the longest moment, a look on his face that Mac would’ve never saw before, because it tends to only be on Jack’s face when Mac’s unconscious or in incredible pain and Jack can’t help.

“Sleep tight, kiddo, I’ll be back when I can.” Jack murmurs, and Mac must imagine the kiss that ghosts over his furrowed forehead.

Mac hasn’t a clue what time it is when he next wakes up. Properly this time, and not the half in and out that he thinks he’s been doing a few times over. He remembers one, vaguely, with the soft dizziness of a dream, waking up to a chilly hand on his forehead, pressing a glass against his parched mouth, but nothing more concrete. 

He rolls over, groans at even the smallest spark of pain that shoots up his spine and into his jaw. Even moving his eyebrows is enough to have his eyes clenching, fresh tears pressing against his eyelids, as he clenches his jaw. He presses his hands to his temple, and maybe he’s just creating more pain but he can’t help it, even with the black out curtains it’s just _too much_.

He has his injections in his bathroom, heavy duty painkillers that will help, will also probably knock him out like he’s took horse tranquilisers, but the _thought_ of getting out of bed is enough to make nausea rise in his throat again, mouth full of saliva and he hardly has time to lunge for the trash can before he’s vomiting, acid burning his throat and nose. It sparks a fresh bout of tears, ribs heaving and stomach contracting-

He ends up collapsed beside the bed, shirt and sweatpants twisted round, eyes glazed over with a soft edged grey; he can barely see the trash can, hands fisted around the metal of it. Only the thought of even the smallest break of the pain that makes the back of his neck seize violently whenever he moves has him attempting to move.

Trying to even roll over has Mac almost heaving, nails biting into his palm as he fists his hands in the carpet of his room, trying to get his knees beneath him to try and heave himself up.

“ _Fuck_.” He mutters, barely audible to his own ears. He managed to roll himself up, almost hitting his head off the bedside cabinet as he _hauled_ himself up, almost ending back where he started when the movement made his head swim, swaying on his feet.

He starts to shake his head, trying to get rid of the stars, only to end up lunging for the trash can again, breath stuttering and retching, but it’s only dry heaving; it’s been hours ago since having those water bottles and he actually hasn't eating anything since before leaving Budapest, and he feels clammy and feverish, even if it’s just the pain of his head. 

He makes his way to the bathroom by feel, every step just ricocheting up his spine into his head, and making his already grey vision fuzz out even more. He whacks his toes more than once, knocks himself off course when he accidentally bashes his shoulders against door jams.

He’s sweating and panting, chest heaving and shoulders actually hurting with the effort, when he finally reaches the bathroom, stumbling in and not even bothering with turning on the light. His injections should be right in the bathroom cabinet, front and center, but his hands are trembling and his wrists and forearms feel like jelly; raising his arms _hurt_ and he almost ends up braining himself against the sink when he stumbles forward, right leg suddenly going limp.

He can barely feel the latch of the mirrored cabinet, scrabbling his fingers against it even as he ends up dry heaving into the sink, throat raw and feeling like it’s been scrubbed by sandpaper.

God, someone just fucking kill him already, _please_ -

He dry heaves violently again, unable to stop himself from grabbing the sides of the sink and knocking something off. He’s only upright through sheer strength of will and his sturdy sink. He hears quiet footsteps, but he’s had auditory hallucinations before, he doesn't think anything of it-

“Oh dear, Angus,” He hears, and suddenly a gloved hand is resting against his forehead, stopping himself from being brained on his own tap. “You _do_ look dreadful, I suppose I can understand why you so _rudely_ ignored my text earlier.”

The sound of someone else’s voice makes Mac whimper, a sound that just makes his head pound all over again. A warm body presses against his back, a muscular arm wrapping around his waist and something is just so familiar about it that Mac just moans, lets the man take his weight.

“I take it you have medications for this sort of pain?” The man asks, but doesn’t seem to want an answer because he just manages to manhandle Mac to sitting on the side of the bath, feet leaving the floor, and _God_ this isn’t the right time but the fact that he’s able to fully lift Mac shouldn’t make him breathless. “Let’s have a look, darling, and see what we can scrounge up.”

Mac just murmurs something he can’t make out, opens his eyes the smallest bit to see a tall, well built man, black clothes and _that smile_ -

“Murdoc.” Mac whimpers, he thinks he should be angry and ashamed at Murdoc seeing him in such a weak position, but he’s in too much pain, and the dreamy echoes of a conversation he thinks he shouldn’t have heard drifts through his brain. 

“Now, darling, I’d love to continue this conversation to where it ends with you whimpering my name like that all over again, but I don’t like your colour at the moment, and the stench of vomit wafting from your bedroom is _particularly_ pungent, so don’t mind if I don’t kiss you before you brush your teeth.”

God, Murdoc talked so damn _much_. Mac’s never wanted to gag someone but _Christ_ , his head is pounding, all he wants is painkillers and to drown himself in water and Murdoc is still fucking _talking_. 

Mac also thinks he’s probably missing something, especially concerning Murdoc and being _in his house_ , but then he hears the sound of the medication cabinet being unlatched, trying his hardest not to slip off the side of the tub. He ends up leaving forward, forehead pressed against what feels like slowly warming leather. 

Murdoc softly _shushes_ him, a gentle hand, somehow without a glove now, curls around the back of Mac’s head, twisting in the strands of sweat soaked hair.

“Kill me,” He murmurs, a hand coming up to grip Murdoc’s coat. “Just, put me out of my misery.”

“Oh come now, precious, we all know you don’t mean that,” Murdoc sounds infinitely amused, but there’s an edge to his tone that Mac’s never heard before. He presses his head harder against what he thinks is Murdoc’s hip, only to gasp, pressing his mouth against the leather against his face to muffle the sound of pain. His skull is _splitting_ open. “And don’t worry, sweet Angus, we both know I won’t kill you just because you say so. Only _I_ get to decide when my sweet boy kicks the bucket after all.”

“That...would almost be charming...if you weren’t so damn creepy.” Mac mutters, biting his lip to muffle the noise of pain as his voice echoes in his own head. 

“Well, that’s just rude, boy scout, especially since I’m the one currently in charge of your pain medication.”

“Just shoot me, then, can’t be in pain if you’re dead.”

“This is just depressing really, you’re usually much funner when you’re in pain, you were definitely _delectable_ last time I had you in my arms, bleeding and whimpering, and _oh_ \- your _squirming._ I’m glad however, that you heeded my advice and didn’t get stabbed this time, especially in Budapest.”

Mac’s pretty sure Murdoc shouldn’t have known where they were, but honestly, his brain wasn’t working all cylinders and the mention of painkillers was the only thing Mac cared about. Murdoc’s leather coat was able to block out the slightest bit of light, and he truly didn’t want to move, but Christ, he wanted to lie down and never move again.

He tries to heave himself up, but the light and the drop of his blood pressure makes his eyes go blank, and he goes fuzzy and grey around more than just the edges. He falls what he thinks is forward, into Murdoc, legs like jelly and head _splitting_ in more than two.

“Oh my _sweetheart_ , if I’d known all it would take was a headache to get you swoon straight into my arms, I would have done this _ages_ ago.” Arms are wrapped around Mac, one around his waist, a hand keeping his head up and tucked into Murdoc’s chest. Without rhyme or rhythm, the floor is suddenly gone, arms beneath his back and knees, and Mac is tucked against a sturdy muscular chest, head braced so no unnecessary movement happens.

He-he feels almost _safe_.

He can’t keep this mind straight long enough to realize where he’s going, only breathing in the scent of leather, gunpowder and something that strongly resembles _cinnamon,_ hands clutching the front of Murdoc’s shirt. There’s a hand tucked into the back of his neck, gloveless and body warm, a gentle enough pressure that it doesn’t hurt even as it keeps Mac’s face tucked into the folds of Murdoc’s coat.

This should feel _incredibly_ strange, especially when Murdoc carefully moves them through the darkened corridors and into what Mac presumes is his bedroom, the slightest weight on his belly. 

He feels his mattress beneath him, and there’s something draped carefully over his eyes as Murdoc let’s his legs down against the bed. He’s still being kept, carefully cradled against Murdoc’s chest, and he has a feeling he’s been in this position before.

The blind over his eyes slip, just a little, and Mac groans, feeling lightning zip down his spine, and he curls inwards, head bumping against Murdoc’s ches again. 

“Shh, my darling, let daddy Murdoc take care of you, yes? That’s a good boy, always knew you could be obedient when you wanted to, boy scout.” Murdoc’s gotten, somehow, creepier than originally, but the soft touches and the gentle, soothing tone he has as he repositions the fabric over Mac’s eyes makes Mac’s spine _melt_. 

Mac feels himself being placed back down on his pillow, a gentle hand skirting up his jaw, smearing over the jut of it, before it creeps down his throat, the slightest hint of pressure before continuing down to his collarbones, pressing what will probably be the faintest of bruises in the taut skin there.

“Now, lets see about these painkillers, yes, my sweetheart? I _do_ like to see you in pain, but only when _I_ cause it, because otherwise-” The hand presses hard against his chest, over his heart. Nails dig in, _just_ a little. Mac gasps, face turning sightlessly to Murdoc. “You in pain is _unacceptable_ , do you understand, Angus?”

“ _Yes_ -” He gasps, feeling that hand curving over his collarbone once more, heavy and possessive. 

Murdoc doesn’t speak for the longest time, as if he’s overwhelmed himself with his own emotion. Instead, Mac hears the faintest sounds of a zipper, and the clink of glass and plastic injectors being prepared. There’s a minute of quiet, before Murdoc, suddenly so much closer than he was originally, breath warm and dry against Mac’s ear, presses a hand to Mac’s cheek, turning his face towards the others.

“You do look absolutely _beautiful_ in my shirt, darling, especially with you being all _vulnerable_. Now, try not to panic, because this is going to have to go intramuscular, and I’d rather not have anyone think I’m murdering you; I’d never do it as cowardly as _this_ , after all.”

Mac groans quietly, and he doesn’t even hide the way he leans into Murdoc’s gentle touch, hiding his face in Murdoc’s shirt again as hands touch at his sweatpant waist, tugging down just enough to get to his thigh. There’s the softest pressure of a thumb against the gaunt dip of his hip bone, before there’s the cool sensation of plastic and glass against his thigh and then the starburst of pain, a needle buried deep in his thigh muscle. 

He gasps, back arching, a hand jolting forward and grasping onto the front of Murdoc’s shirt. The injector is kept there for a few seconds, and then pulled away, a hand tugging his sweatpants up properly, and then sweeping up to his chest, pressing against his sternum, as if feeling the racing beat of his heart.

The painkillers take about five minutes to work, and those minutes are spent curled against Murdoc’s chest, cradled like something precious, and if Mac was thinking properly, he wouldn’t quite know how to feel about that. 

He sighs in relief when the medication starts to work, a sweep of coolness rushing through his veins. Every single one of his muscles relaxed, even the ones he hadn’t realized had been tense, hard as a rock, and _aching_.

He feels himself go limp on the bed, barely realizing when Murdoc stands, taking his coat off and then layering it over Mac. Mac murmurs, something inaudible to his own ears, and sweeps soft fingers over the collar of the leather jacket. He feels arms beneath him again, and then he’s resting against something soft, smelling leather, gunpowder and cinnamon again.

Lost in the sweet oblivion of no longer being in pain, no longer wanting to be put out of his misery, Mac sighs as he turns his face towards Murdoc, feeling the strong muscles of his thigh beneath his cheek. A hand hovers over his hair for a few moments, before fingers twist around the sweat soaked strands, carding through them carefully. His fingers curve around his temple, feeling the jut of his cheekbone, sweeping across the cliff of his jaw.

Mac doesn’t know how long they lie there, in a soft sort of grey area, curled up against Murdoc’s lap, head still softly pounding. It feels like a dream, fevered and distant, but he knows that he makes a disappointed sound when Murdoc’s hands stop, and his thighs tense as if he’s preparing to move away.

Mac doesn’t think, sleep drunk and vulnerable with relief. He shoots an uncoordinated hand out, feeling his fingers tangling clumsily with Murdoc’s. Murdoc’s fingers clench around his, a calloused thumb brushing to and fro over Mac’s shaking knuckles.

“...stay, please.” He murmurs, turning his face further into Murdoc’s trousers. In the hazed back of his mind, still clumsy and fevered, he thinks he hears Murdoc make a sound of triumphant, a hand coming to squeeze the back of his neck.

“Oh, boy scout,” Murdoc fairly _purrs_. His hand creeps back up to Mac’s hair, cradling the back of his skull. “They’d have to kill the both of us to tear me away from you, now.”

He dipped into sleep with the whistled notes of _home on the range_ echoing in his ears.


	3. (blood) that tastes sultry sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You weren’t mine when I first saw you, but now, now boy scout, you’re so irrevocably mine that anything else is unfeasible. I’d keep you with me and Cassian if I knew you would stay, if I knew you would stay because you wanted to, and not because I kept you there.” ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I can only apologize for how long this chapter took to get up oh my god.  
> and tbf, i know it ends quite abruptly, but my god, if I didn't end it there, I never would have jesus christ.

In any other situation, the Crimean Submediterranean Forestry Complex would be a beautiful place to see, with lush forests sprawling out in every direction and the glisten of the Black Sea melding into the Crimean mountains whenever Mac had managed to stumble to the rocky beaches that surrounded the forest complex.

In literally _any other_ situation than this, Mac would love this, would love to just sit and admire the beauty around him, would actually love to camp out here for a few days, with the correct gear, maybe try and fish a little, either by himself or just dragging Jack with him like they did before they started DXS and had a few weeks downtime. It’s a gorgeous place and he’s glad that he’s been able to see it for even the small amount of time he’s been able to. It’s a shame that he has to do it whilst slowly bleeding out from a stab wound _far_ too close to his throat for his liking and a gunshot wound to his left side, just below where he’d got stabbed a few months ago, and having lost Riley and Jack only about ten minutes ago.

He’d lost them in a hail of bullets and butchered curses, the rough and tumble shouting of the Ukrainian militia that they’d been trying to find so they could gather the intel that the militia had been able to grab off a flipped MI6 agent about various defence codes, including American and which could possibly include nuclear warhead codes, following closely behind. It hadn’t been too bad to start with, only what he and Jack had theorized had been a patrol group of about four men, lightly armed with only what Jack had recognised as a Fort 14TP and Fort 224, which had also been a side note in their files that a several stockpiles from the Ukrainian military had been reported missing. 

_At least we know where they’ve gone,_ Riley had said, before shit had broken loose and they’d spotted Mac’s too blonde hair in the under bush and the remaining gear that they hadn’t been able to hide. It had been a quick five minute fight. The three of them having been able to take them down, especially when they had Jack with them, who was oftentimes a one man wrecking ball on his own. Reinforcements had quickly shown up, however, no doubt having been radioed by at least one of the guys who’d took a while to go down, and _this_ patrol had been about twenty men strong, Jack had had the only guns, nothing more than his usual Heckler and Koch P30’s since this _was_ supposed to be rostered as just strictly surveillance, stealth, and intel gathering, which is why Riley had been here with her rig because they’d all saw it as a good time to get some wilderness and survival training in, and whilst Mac is good in a pinch, he’s not good if he doesn’t have _time_ to do his job and though he’s a trained combat agent, there’s not a lot of good you can do if they’re wielding guns, half of them are the size of _actual bears_ , and you’re terrified of setting off a wildfire in a forest.

He’s starting to think that this whole mission was doomed from the start, either from awful intel or someone with a grudge against the whole Phoenix Agency. At this point, Mac would just take an act of a God determined to fuck up his entire day.

Now though, at least four and a half klicks away from the original site and one and a quarter klick away from where he’d been ambushed by two wandering patrolmen that obviously hadn’t been in the know about the ambush on three American agents, and to kill on sight from what Mac had been able to glean with his rudimentary Ukrainian and thusly had managed to get both _shot_ and _stabbed_ from where he’d accidentally ran _into_ the two of them before running _away_ , Mac honestly wishes he was _anywhere_ but the Crimean Submediterrian Forestry Complex.

It’s still an honestly a beautiful place, but it’s starting to look less like a forest and more like a blurred dream, hazy around the edges, from the blood loss and the way he just wants to curl up into a ball and nap for a thousand years. Mac honestly just kind of wants a snack, a drink, and a good old nap, he doesn't care which order.

He doesn’t know where he is now, had run in a general direction just to get away from them, and he thinks he’s been leaving a blood trail despite his best efforts not too, the fact that he’s bleeding from two sites isn’t good. Mac catches himself on one of the thick trunks of the trees, hands smeared red and his every breath rattling around in his chest, everything hurting bone deep, he’s so _tired_.

The blood that’s slowly seeping down his chest and left side is slowly cooling, sticky and uncomfortable at best and sensory torture at worst. He leans against the tree, shuddering as he moves wrong, feeling the sharp slice of his muscles. He’s managed to keep his arm clenched as tight as he can against his left side, but it _hurts_ , bone deep and aching, pulling on where the chest drain had been only about two months ago when he’d been mugged. He’s grateful that the repeated trauma hasn’t caused another tension pneumothorax, which had been something he’d have to watch out for again, and the _very thought_ of having to sit there, breath rattling in his chest as he slowly drowns in his own blood, his very body turned against him, has him shivering, shaking in his boots, on the verge of a panic attack he can’t afford to indulge in right now. He kind of wants to shove himself beneath his bed and let himself fall to pieces like he used to do as a kid.

Mac’s drowned before; he’s been waterboarded and he’s been shoved beneath the waves of a lake, of an ocean far more than he likes to think, but there was something about that time, about drowning in his own blood, a sucking wound on his left chest side, gasping for air, alone, unprotected, _abandoned_ , that had terrified him in ways that it hadn’t before. Maybe it was because he was off duty, for all that a clandestine government agent can be _off duty_ , maybe it was the surprise of it, but whatever it was, Mac still tastes the blood in his mouth when he dreams, still thinks he’s lying in Murdoc’s arms, gasping for breath that just won’t come.

Mac shakes his head, clenches his arm tighter against his side just to feel the stomach turning _rend_ of his flesh, swallowing convulsively against the bitter rise of bile in his throat. It knocks the incoming panic attack on it’s head, but he can feel the anxiety, the worry of it, fluttering just around his pulse point, deep in his chest. He closes his eyes for just a moment, sneaks a hand to the slash wound just where his shoulder meets his throat, hemorrhaging blood and awashing him in the body warm scarlet of it. He lets himself slide down the tree trunk, swallows down his sob alongside the rest of the bile and wonders if this is it for him, if this is the time that there is something that Angus MacGyver can’t do. His head tips back, and he lets it thunk carelessly against the slowly striping bark, flinching as it pulls on the delicate skin of his throat. 

It _hurts_ . It hurts so badly, like he’s being ripped apart at the seams, like someone’s still twisting the knife even if it’s not inside him anymore. He can still feel the soldier’s arm around his throat, the way his breath had been _squeezed_ out of him, how he was about to have his throat sliced open like a slaughtered pig, how the man’s body had _enveloped_ his, too broad and massive to actually fight him off, feet dangling inches from the floor, and for the tiniest of moments, he’d been back there. Back in Deukmejian, in Los Angeles, that faceless mugger hauling him up and _away_ , not even _phased_ with Mac’s struggling, and it had only been how Mac had flinched, had fought, had dug his heel deep into the soldier’s kneecap that had stopped the knife from slicing into his throat. Had been when he’d been able to cold clock the soldier and _run_ , only to get shot by the other guy that he’d managed to knock away temporarily. 

He doesn’t have anything to stem the wounds with either; apart from his clothes, all the supplies are either back in the clearing probably festering with soldiers or with Jack and Riley, who needs them far more than Mac. He’s only got his swiss army knife, doesn’t even have a _Sat Phone_ to call exfil for, or to even get in touch with Riley and Jack. 

He bites his bottom lip, has to risk letting go of the still freely bleeding wounds to be able to fumble with his padded coat, fingers chilly and tacky with his own blood as he gets to his second to last layer, trying to keep as much pressure as he’s able to on his side. He’s wearing a henley and a flannel shirt beneath his coat, and his henley is thermal so unfortunately, it’s going to be one of his dad’s old flannel shirts that’s going to have to be sacrificed, one that he remembers his dad placing around him when his mom had died, and his dad had carried him to bed that night, had let five year old angus curl into his lap that night and sleep there. He doesn’t want to, hates that it’s a casualty of this, but it’s either the shirt or him. 

The flannel, a muted yellow and red, is worn soft and easily torn with the help of Mac’s handy swiss army knife after he shoulders it off. He curses beneath his breath with every move, trying to ignore the fact that his fingers are slowly growing numb, tingling at the very tips, how his head is even more light headed, how his entire body is trembling. It doesn’t hurt as much either, and Mac can feel the tiredness and cold seeping in. God, he’s just so _tired._

He hopes Riley and Jack are faring better than he is, right now. The only thing really keeping him going is finding them, making sure they’re okay.

The stab and gun wounds are in precarious positions too, just off to the side enough that he’s not really able to use the sleeves of the flannel to put proper pressure on them. That, and he’s pretty sure that the bullet is still in his side but he can’t afford to dig it out right now, doesn’t know if it’s fragmented off inside him, never mind the fact that he doesn’t even have the equipment to _begin_ that kind of field surgery, improvised equipment or not, he’s already bound to have an infection, he doesn’t want to welcome it anymore by digging around with his unsanitized pocket knife. No matter which way he looks at this, he’s _fucked_. 

He has to make quick work, not able to stop even with the lightening bolt of pain every time he moves his throat, whenever he _breathes_ , has to bite his tongue, his bottom lip, bites down on his sleeve when he needs to, to quiet his whimpers, the harsh breathes of pain he can’t help but give. Mac never liked to let on to anyone else that he’s in pain, but right now it’s just him and the tall, quiet trees.

It's the philosophical question; if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it make a sound, did it ever really fall?

He arches his back, manages to made a crude splint for his side with a piece of the flannel wrapped around his waist, he _knows_ it’s not tight enough to keep proper pressure on, but he’s losing strength _and_ losing daylight incredibly fast and he needs to get this _done_ so he can move so it’ll have to do. He can’t do much for the stab wound, only can make a makeshift pressure bandage with folding a piece of flannel and shoving it beneath his henley for stability and hoping it’ll do the job for him. 

For the longest second after, blood pooling around him, shivering in the chilling air with his coat draped over his lap, Mac just sits there, leaning against the trees, feeling the leaves beneath his legs. He looks up towards the sky, cloudy grey and being claimed by dusk as easily as the night falls to the morning. The moon’s a barely there crescent in the sky, bright and enchanting, mountain ranges eating into the dusky expanse to touch upon the first glistening stars, barely visible.

Mac’s never been much of a astronomy man; physics and chemistry was always the things he was most interested in, with the occasional dash of biology mixed in, especially when his mom was dying and Mac had tried so hard for so long to search up a cure, even though he hadn’t made heads or tails of what he’d been looking at. He’d been a child and had only known that his mother was _ill_ and that, whether they wanted her to or nor, she was going to leave. Remembers days whittled away at her hospital bedside, in his dad's lap, reading too advanced books that his dad would explain, his mom watching them fondly, all three of them each wearing one of his dad’s flannels, too big and massive, smelling of his cologne, of comfort. Remembers nights at Harry’s house, curled up on the deck and watching the stars, but that only inevitably leads him to thinking of the night dad had left, little ten year old Mac standing on the deck, candles on his birthday cake slowly fizzling out as he stared up at the stars, as his grandpa put a hand on his shoulder, said _I’m sorry, Angus_ and _it’s nothing you’ve done, kiddo_ and _he’s got some stuff he needs to sort out,_ like that had made it any better, had made it hurt less.

Mac closes his eyes, tries not to feel the burn in his chest that has nothing to do with the bullet buried in his side, the still present empty ach between his ribs and his left side lung. It doesn’t make a difference regardless. There aren't a lot of things that Mac can’t change, that he can’t change the parameters to meet what he needs them too, but _this_ is one of them. So instead, he concentrates on the soft squelch he hears from himself every time he tries to move, concentrates on the bile clawing at the bottom of his throat as he tries to swallow it down. This is nothing new to him, and it never has been.

He thumps his head against the trunk of the tree, lets the sharp starburst of pain rattle his brain around for a moment, tries to steady his trembling hands, because he needs to get moving, needs to get to his feet, needs to try to find Riley and Jack. He’s just thankful that it’s _him_ out here alone, and not Jack or even Riley. It’s not that he thinks they aren’t trained, that they can’t handle themselves, it’s just that if anyone on the team should be in danger it’s going to be _him_ . Mac is the least of any of them, has _always_ been the least of any of them, the most replaceable, he likes to delude himself sometimes that nobody can do what he can, but all it takes is a little knowledge and creativity; all of which the entire team _has_. _He_ is the most expendable on the team, the least deserving of the protection Jack extends like a cloak across the entire team, and he’ll be damned if they get hurt _because_ of him, because of his neediness of belonging, or wanting a family.

This is why he hates blood loss, he always ends up maudlin, and ends up thinking of all the ways everyone would be better off without him, like he doesn’t already know that.

He thumps his head against the tree trunk again, curls his fingers deliberately into the gunshot wound, hears the squelch of flesh, the gurgle of blood and _cries_ out against his other hand, anything to stop his head from floating away, eyes going grey around the edges but it’s infinitely better then the way sadness crowds at the edges of his brain, how anxiety sinks into his bones like the gunshot had split more than just his skin. God, he just wants to go _home_ , he thinks, futilely, _uselessly_.

He’s here though, here in a forest that houses mostly danger and two of the most important people in his life, and he needs to get _moving._ He manages to get his feet beneath him, _hauls_ himself up, only to end up nearly taking a header into the leaf strewn floor, head dizzy, eyes blank, heart thundering, stomach suddenly trying to escape his outsides, nauseated and trembling. 

He retches, one hand on his knee, the other trying to keep himself steady, stomach convulsing, throat _screaming_ at him at the bitter taste of bile, side and throat _burning_ , feeling the pull of rendered flesh, the sick pull of muscles. He hasn’t had much of an appetite, stuck mostly to the still god awful MRE’s that he remembers from being downrange, he’d ended up guzzling down water more than anything, and it’s showing itself in how it’s only watery bile and nothing really solid. God, he really hates throwing up on an empty stomach. But he needs to get moving, swallows down the sour spit, uses the hand he’s still got pressed against the tree to push off.

He feels like he’s on ice, legs going every which way as he stumbles, but he needs to _move_ , goddamnit, why can’t his legs _move_ like he wants them too, why is his head so _heavy_ , so foggy; he feels like he’s been inhaling nitrogen, and he _knows_ intimately what that’s like, his lungs feel one size too small, and the stars, once so bright and glistening against the dusk darkening sky are blurring together, smeared across their canvas like the artist had tripped, clumsy and heavy handed with their paintbrush. 

“ _Mам, швидко!” (over there, quickly!)_ Rough Ukrainian reaches the blurred outlines of his hearing and Mac ducks down immediately, hates how unsteady his legs are. He’s hoping that it’s just another patrol but he knows he hasn’t been that lucky when they start towards him, not bothering to mask their movements. _Shit_. He was hoping he’d have more time; he shouldn’t have dallied, feeling sorry for himself. He just hopes that because they’re on his trail that they’ve been unsuccessful in hunting down Riley and Jack, hoping that they’ve at least been able to get in touch with exfil and Matty.

“ _Я бачу його!”_ (i see him!) Another voice thunders out, closer than before, and Mac doesn’t have another warning before gunshots pepper the trees and foliage around him and he ducks his head even as he pushes off from his bloodied tree, leaving a stark handprint against the aging white of it. 

He doesn’t stop to think, uses the sick rend of his flesh and how his wounds ache to propel himself across the forest floor, dodging downed trunks and thickets of foliage as he tries to get away. It sounds like there’s only two soldiers, but they’re both armed and look a lot bigger than Mac, who is already quickly reaching the end of his physical tether, bleeding, and dizzy, and just so _tired_. Still, he ducks gunshots as best as he can, veering around trees, only manages to just clear a fallen trunk as his vision swims.

It comes out of nowhere. Not even the rustling of foliage gives it away, Mac will think back on it, and think _was I that distracted?_ Will wonder if he just wasn’t observant enough, or if it was the blood loss that made him weak, or even if it was just the fact that he was being shot at that made him _not notice_ the third soldier, built like a bear and barreling into Mac like a tank on the right side. 

Mac _wheezes_ , unable to grab breath, head pounding, thick arms wrapped around him, crushing his ribs, his _hips_ , he’s lifted bodily off the floor, almost half a foot, feels himself going even more dizzy. He tries to kick again, tries to wiggle his arms free, tries to toss his head back, forward, trying to headbutt, tries to kick off _something_ , but there’s nothing around him in reach and he’s got no leverage, and the third soldier has such a tight grip, has a forearm across the gunshot wound and it’s sparks behind his eyes, lightning down his spine, he wants to vomit. 

The soldier shakes him, once, twice, a third time for seemingly good measure and Mac _does_ vomit, stomach clenching, ribs creaking beneath the added force, throat burning, feeling like his brain is about to escape from his ears; something from his nose drips into his mouth, body warm and tasting like pennies. The man loosens him, but Mac still can’t escape, shaking, mouth gaping for breath, chest heaving, cheeks wet with his tears, choking on blood all over again.

He’s dropped from the soldiers arms as the other two approach, vision greying at the edges, trying to blink wetness away, but the way he hits the floor has more tears burning against his eyes, eyelashes damp as he clenches them shut, tries to muffle his pained scream into his shoulder. But then an arm’s roughly yanking him onto his back, tight around his wrist, pulling his already injured arm up and _out,_ behind his back. There’s a massive foot against the back of his neck, a separate soldier’s knee against his back between his shoulder blades and he can’t _breathe,_ he can’t breathe, feels like he’s choking again, feels the pinpoint starburst of pain as rocks push into his chest, his sides; there's a twig _digging_ into his right side, almost perfectly opposite where the gunshot wound is. He’s pinned, a thumbtack through his middle like he’s a butterfly ready for inspection, for display.

A pair of boots, sturdy and practical, possibly tactical, appear before his face, and Mac can’t repress the instinct flinch. He’s been kicked in the face enough times in a position like this.

“ _Чому ви, американці, завжди повинні бігати?_ ” ( _why must you americans always run?)_ The soldier asks, an amused edge to his tone, as if this is _fun_ for him. Even though he knows he’s not going to get anywhere, Mac tries to struggle, tries to yank himself out of the holds and just ends up with the leader’s hand in his hair, tugging his head up, up, _up_ , until he’s looking at the man through tear wet eyes, neck craned back further than comfortable, mouth dropping open just so he can breathe. “ _Це як ти хочеш, щоб на тебе полювали, як на тварин, хм?” (it’s like you want to be hunted like animals, hm?)_

Mac can’t say anything, he’s too breathless from the pain, the weight of the soldier on his back, the way his head is angled. The crouched soldier laughs, shaking Mac’s head with the hand gripping the hair on the crown of his head. He tries to get his legs beneath him, but the soldier only has to flick his dark gaze to the one holding his arm wrenched behind his back and there’s steady pressure on his knees, pinning them too.

“ _У вас багато хоробрості, чи не так, досить американський?”_ ( _you have a lot of bravery, don’t you, pretty american?)_ The soldier asks, and he lets go of Mac’s hair, laughs when Mac’s chin bounces and he lets out a hiss when he bites his own tongue. After, his face is jerked up by a boot beneath his chin, hard and uncomfortable, smelling of dirt and gunpowder. He can’t move even an inch, he feels like his ribs are an inch from cracking beneath the weight of the knee between his shoulder blades. 

He really doesn’t know how he’s getting out of this; he can barely understand them, brain frazzled, more than fuzzy at the edges, like he’s been on a six day project bender, and Jack has had to knock him out with a sedative slipped into his coffee that they think he doesn’t know about.

His chin is shifted up higher, bent far past what it should be. Mac swallows heavily, feels the noise his throat makes because of how it’s stretched, a strange _glu-click_ , mouth full of blood that he can’t spit or swallow, tongue heavy and pinned to the bottom of his mouth by its own weight.

“ _Ти помреш тут, симпатична американка, у бруді.Я б запитав вас, де ваші друзі, але вони будуть так само легко вистежити._ ” ( _You're going to die here, pretty American, in the dirt. I'd ask you where your friends are, but they'll be just as easy to hunt down_.) There’s a hand in his hair again, right at the front, bringing fresh tears; he bites the inside of his cheek, adding to the blood already.

The boot at his chin disappears, only for the soldier to crouch in front of him again, rough calloused fingers clutching at Mac’s chin, hard enough to leave bruises, dirty nails cutting into him. There’s a gun barrel pressed between his eyes, still warm from being shot previously. The soldier’s finger is already on the trigger. Mac doesn’t close his eyes, stares up at the lead soldier, see’s the way he’s smiling, just a curl of his lips, eyes cold.

“ _Ти будеш жебракувати, симпатична американка?”_ ( _A_ _re you going to beg, pretty american?)_ He’s asked, and Mac only understands bits and pieces, can’t talk even if he could parse more than _beg_ and _American_ , stuck between a rock and a hard place, staring down death not even an inch from his face.” _Якщо ви просите так красиво, як ваше обличчя виглядає, я, безумовно, насолоджуватися цим._ ” ( _If you beg as prettily as your face looks, I will certainly enjoy this.)_

“He does beg quite prettily, I can assure you. Far prettier than his face looks which I hadn’t thought possible, so I suppose you’ll be glad that his face is the last thing you’ll ever see if you put another finger on what belongs to me.”

It happens like before, there isn’t a sound or even a movement that signifies what happened before it did. Only Murdoc, tall and looming and _dangerous_ , pistol in his gloved hand, pistol-whipping the lead soldier before they’ve got any chance to even _move_ , planting an impressive controlled pair into his chest and head. He doesn’t get back up again, sturdy boots just missing Mac’s head.

The guy on Mac’s knees lunges forward, releasing his arm and making Mac yelp out in pain which only seems to make Murdoc _angrier_ , has him ducking beneath the gunshots from the pistol, blocking the punch aimed towards his temple and shooting the soldier in the groin and then, twisting so he can use him as a human shield against the last soldier, still kneeling on Mac’s back, shooting the second soldier beneath the chin, not bothering to duck the resulting spray of blood. 

Mac’s yanked up unceremoniously, pistol cutting into the jut of his jaw, in the sensitive skin there, a massive, bear-like arm around his waist, toes just touching the floor. Murdoc _stills_ , gun outstretched, eyes wide, teeth bared in a snarl. He’s got blood splattered across his face, Mac can see the stark white of his eyes even from here, how Murdoc takes in every aspect, the danger Mac is in, the blood already smeared across Mac’s throat, the heavy blood stains across his clothes, his hands. Something dark and almost _savage_ clouds Murdoc’s dark eyes, has his fingers tightening around the grip of his pistol. Even now, his hand is steady.

“I must say, boy scout,” Murdoc says conversationally, as if he hasn’t somehow appeared in the Crimean Submediterrean Forestry Complex and _saved Mac’s life_. As if he has any _right_ to be where he is, as if he should _know_ where Mac is. “Just because you didn’t get hurt in Budapest doesn’t mean that my claim on your life was thrown out and that you can do what you wish with it. I dearly hope that this means I’m going to have to give you a little _refresher_ on what it means to be _mine_ , Angus.”

“ _Замовкнути! Хто ти?” (shut up! Who are you?)_ The soldier shouts, tightening his hold on Mac’s waist, digging the pistol’s barrel in further. Mac bites his lip, he can’t get a proper breath in, knows that he’s probably got a few cracked, if not outright broken, ribs after being tackled so harshly. “ _Ви не один з його друзів, звідки ви прийшли? Що ти хочеш?” (you are not one of his friends, where did you come from? What do you want?)_

Mac wheezes, tries to get his hands around the arm around his waist, but he can’t move it, bloodied fingers scrambling at the immoveable limb. He feels a little like a ragdoll between two dogs. Murdocs eyes stay on him, watching his struggle. Mac has been the recipient of Murdoc’s full attention before, has felt the full weight of his intimidation, the way he has of being able to zero in on you that Mac has never really encountered before, but this is something he can’t really, _truly_ , describe. It feels like Murdoc is flaying his skin off, like he’s already slipped his way into Mac’s body, has already made himself a home there and is just willing Mac to know that, like he’s the last one to know.

“Me? Oh I don't want _much_ really; it’s just that you’ve taken my sweetheart and like I said, I _really_ do want him back, I’d say preferably in one piece but it looks like either you or some of your ….unfortunate friends have taken a few _nibbles_ out of him. I’m afraid that does mean increasingly _bad_ news for you, my massive friend. I hope you're not _particularly_ attached to anything important like breathing.”

Murdoc pauses, eyes still wide, teeth still bared, gun still steady. The soldier holding Mac just stares at him, as if a little dumbfounded at his forwardness. 

"You see, only _I_ get to damage what belongs to me, and only I get to touch my darling like you are currently. Are you alright, boy scout?"

Mac wheezes out a response, thinks dizzily _I'm the belonging he's talking about_ and honestly that should probably terrify him more than it does. 

"Oh see, now this _really_ won't do."

Mac shudders, feeling the arm around his waist tightening, fingers tingling, numb as he tries to scrabble at the arm again. His visions slowly greying, going soft around the edges. Murdoc seems to sway where he stands, even when his hand stays steady. Mac’s chin wants to dip forward but the gun at his throat doesn’t let it.

“ _Ти зарозумілий, тупо такий.” (you are arrogant, stupidly so)_ The soldier says, and Murdoc grins, with too many teeth to be anything other than a threat. He locks eyes on Mac’s, and something in the way Murdoc stands, shoulders coiling like a predator’s beneath his long leather coat, alerts Mac to what he’s about to do, even as half of Murdoc blurs, eyelashes damp, chest wheezing, a fever dream softness to his sharp edges. His finger moves on the trigger, and before Mac is even conscious of doing so, he lets himself go limp, chokes on the gun, feet dragging on the floor, and when the other gun goes off, his ears ring, his mind makes white noise as a bullet lands directly in the soldier's forehead. Mac doesn't even touch the floor, before Murdoc is there.

He looms before Mac, just as dark and just as dangerous, but there's something to his smile now, the softening edges of it, the tender crinkling of his eyes, the way his leather gloved hands cup at Mac's trembling jaw line as he takes deep gulping breaths. He smells of cinnamon and gunpowder and leather, reminds Mac of too dark rooms, a tender kiss to his knuckles, and a muscular thigh beneath his head. Steady hands the only things keeping him upright. 

A hand squeezes the nape of his neck, plastic against his bloodied mouth and then sweet, chilled water tips into mouth, past that, Murdoc staring at him through dark, _dark_ eyes. 

"Good boy, boy scout," Murdoc says, and the half emptied water bottle goes back into one of his pockets; Mac whimpers, reaching for more, side screaming, but Murdoc shushes him, thumb rubbing against Macs skin as if soothing him. "There's more when we get you away from here, Angus, just have patience."

Mac stares at him, silently wondering if this is how he dies, Murdoc having helped him only to kill him.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, boy wonder, why would I go through all that trouble and then kill you when you're already hurt? Terribly rude, Angus, truly."

Murdoc moves closer, wafting that cinnamon, gunpowder, and leather scent closer, and Mac _relaxes_ , lets his head loll into Murdocs all to capable hands.

His last moments are of Murdoc picking him up, shushing him gently when he movement makes him grit his teeth around a thin scream, tucking him into his chest as if he's something infinitely precious, of Murdoc saying something that follows him into the greying of his vision.

"I've got you now, darling. Daddy Murdoc is going to take care of everything."

His head drops to a strong chest and his hearing fizzles out, but Murdoc’s hands stay with him, the way they cradle him and Mac can’t help the way his eyes droop, the way one of his hands curl into the killer’s coat. 

He still smells of cinnamon, soothing; whistling _home on the range_ , hearing how it echoes in the forest, how Murdoc tries to keep his gait smooth. Above them, through the shadows of the trees slowly passing, the stars are smeared, staring down upon them, slowly greying against Macs fluttering eyelashes. He hears the gentle drumming of Murdoc’s heartbeat, counts seventy one beats per minute, feels the gentle lift of his chest, and wonders dizzily why this all feels so familiar.

Mac must actually fall unconscious along the way, because he rouses next to a crackling campfire as Murdoc lays him out on a cleared section of floor, and Mac whimpers, gritting his teeth against a thin scream as it jostles his wounds. Murdoc doesn’t apologise, only smooths a gloved hand through Mac’s ruined hair. He disappears, and Mac can hear him rustling around with something before he appears, a ghost in the slowly falling darkness, shadows snaking out from the forest, hands full as he kneels beside Mac. He stares Mac over as he slowly takes his leather gloves off.

“ _Mur-Murdoc_ ,” He tries to say, feeling like his tongue is a size too big for his mouth, still tasting of pennies regardless of the water and swollen from punches. “Mu-Murdoc? Wh-where's ...Jack? Riley?"

Murdoc only hums, eyes dark and a big hand sprawling out on Mac’s heaving belly as if to keep him still as Murdoc uses a knife to cut away his ruined jacket, keeping the no doubt ruined thermal henley intact for warmth, _gasping_ as Murdoc touches steady fingers to the slash wound at his throat, slowly unwinding the makeshift pressure bandage there, crying out at the pull of dried blood on his skin, back arching, a hand flailing out and catching on Murdoc’s ever present trench coat. Murdoc tuts.

“I do so hope I haven’t put another bullet hole in you, Angus, though I don’t mind you gasping and covered in blood, it’s just so ... _exhilarating,”_ His hands are clinical, but his gaze is hot as he looks Mac over. Murdoc pours something wet and chilly over the slash, leaves Mac shivering and moaning, teeth clenched at the stinging. “Though I suppose a knife seems to have done the job perfectly well, if a little sloppily.”

"... _Where_ are Jack and ...Riley?" Mac gasps out, a hand coming up to grasp at Murdoc's wrist. Murdoc stills immediately, eyes darting down to stare at Mac, dark and wide. Perhaps he can see something in Mac's face that tells him Mac isn't going to give this up. He sighs, twists his wrist from Mac's grasp, only to hold it in his own hand, thumb rubbing against Mac's knuckles in a way that seems far too familiar for it to be the first time.

"Your yelping guard dog and Miss Davis are in the wind, boy scout. I didn't find them or anyone else apart from three goons that had you, but really, I don't think a yapper like Dalton is likely to be took down or allow dear Miss Davis to be, either, so worry less about them and more about your pretty little self, Angus, because the longer I sit here talking, the _longer_ you're bleeding out, and rest assured, dear boy scout, I _will_ bring you back somehow."

Murdoc turns away, hand falling from Mac’s and leaving him suddenly bereft, and grabs something to clean the rest of the blood, and Mac can’t help but notice that his hair is falling into his face, the way his eyes are dark and wide, the brown of his eyes eaten up by the pupil. Mac’s back arches, hands fisting, eyes clenching shut as Murdoc presses against the slash wound, stemming the little bleeding that had started back up again, fire licking up his spine at the feeling, twisting beneath Murdoc’s hands before a big hand is at his belly again, pressing him down, thumbtack still.

“Keep still, sweet Angus, you’re going to need a few stitches and we wouldn’t you any more scarred up than you already are, hmm?” Murdoc murmurs, and Mac grits his teeth again, wants to turn over, wants to be so far from here, from the Forestry Complex; God, please, he just wants to go _home._ He wishes they'd never come here, because then all three of them would be _safe_. Mac wouldn’t be bleeding out, but that's a secondary thought at best, Jack and Riley are lost, out in the forest, and Mac doesn't know where they _are_.

Murdoc doesn’t give him anything to down for the pain, only readies a needle and syringe and if it was anybody else he knew, Mac would have absolutely no problem with them injecting him but this is _Murdoc_.

“Wh-what’s that?” He gasps, trying to wiggle away, but Murdoc is strong, sturdy and built for keeping someone pinned, and Mac is weak with blood loss and tiredness. It takes very little effort to keep him still. Murdoc looks at him, grinning, blood on his face.

“Local anaesthetic, I’m sure I can stitch you up without, my darling, but I thought you’d want the little bit of relief from the pain.” 

Mac drops his head, closes his eyes. 

“Thank you,” He says, stamps down the little bit of guilt he can feel bubbling up. His paranoia is well deserved. “I just-”

“No need to placate my feelings, boy scout, I’m sure you’ll be over that pesky guilt as soon as I stab you!”

The local anaesthetic still doesn’t take the edge off, no matter how careful and unsurprisingly talented Murdoc is at giving stitches. It still _hurts_ , a flare of white hot pain every time the stitching needle passes through the skin, back arching and he can feel the pain in his arm from where Murdoc’s had to kneel on it to keep him from lashing out, from punching something. He can feel thin rivulets of blood, feel the shallow pool of warm liquid beneath his neck, can’t help but count each pass, _one, two, three-_ He can’t help the screaming, strangled, throat hurting, his head hurts from where he’s bashed it against the floor.

“Shhh, boy scout, there we go, your pretty throat is all stitched up now.” Murdoc’s voice sounds from far away, fuzzy around the edges, like there’s a white noise machine somewhere inside Mac’s brain.

He’s shaking, shivering. Hard enough that his muscles actually hurt, cramping, like he’s on the verge of a seizure. A big hand, body warm and a little tacky, presses against his throat, his jaw, a thumb smears across the bitten bloody swell of his bottom lip, he can feel when Murdoc thumbs it down, exposing the white of his teeth. Mac turns into the touch, chest heaving, breath rattling. He can feel something pooling against his side again, the gunshot is bleeding again. He wishes Jack was here, wants him here like a physical ache; there've been many times where Jack and he have had to stitch one another up, more than should probably be really healthy, but nothing ever gets Mac used to the sick pull of a needle through his skin. God, he hopes Riley and Jack are safe.

“Ah yes, let’s make sure that you don’t bleed out from this one too; you’ve been very careless with your life, darling, it’s enough to make a man incredibly jealous, let me tell you.”

Mac wheezes out a laugh, thinks he’s probably had a bit too much exposure to Murdoc when he doesn’t even flinch when Murdoc picks up his knife again, slicing the thermal henley away from his chest, and then warm, steady hands are on his chest, digging in slightly against the grooves of his heaving ribs, inquisitive against the dusky flatness of his top surgery scars just below his nipples, Mac shivers again, feels himself arching into the touch, the way the nails dig in slightly, and Mac moans softly, hand coming up to grasp at Murdoc’s coat, his bare wrist.

He cries out again when those hands come to rest on his side, having to cut away the sodden pressure bandage he’d made from his dad’s old flannel shirt, and Mac’s stomach flips, bile rising in his mouth but he manages to swallow it down, eyes glassy, staring up at the starry sky, mouth open and panting. A hand presses against his wound, the slight pin prick of a needle with local anaesthesia and Mac just makes a broken noise in the back of his throat, spine twisting fruitlessly. He’s barely aware of how Murdoc cleans the wound again, water just as chilly and hurtful, pooling in the small of Mac’s back as he shivers, the air cool against his overheated skin, sweat damp and blood stained. 

He can’t help how he cries out, eyes clenching shut and sending the tears that had been steadily building falling, wet on his temple, seeping into his hair. Murdoc makes a sound that can only be described as _hungry_ , a low growling sound even as he presses a finger into the gunshot wound, trying to reach towards the bullet, making Mac jacknife forward, hiccuping on his own breathing, swear words mixed in with the choked off groans.

“Oh _Angus_ ,” Murdoc murmurs, sounding almost _rapturous_. Mac moans, shivering, turns into the very hands that are hurting him to help him. “You really have done a number on yourself didn’t you? Like I said, just because you didn’t get shot in Budapest doesn’t mean you had to try your best to do it this time.”

Mac cries out again, high pitched and reedy, legs kicking out, a fist hitting the ground as Murdoc presses forward, fingers wide and long, _God_ , Murdoc’s fingers are inside of him, invasive, touching his insides, awash with scarlet blood as he tries to find the bullet, and Mac is whimpering, crying out, it _hurts_ , it hurts so _badly_ , vision greying in and out, catching sight of the stars above him, the paleness of Murdoc’s skin, how his eyebrows are furrowed, blood splattered across his face. There’s a strange pressure against his insides and then, fire licking down his spine, Murdoc is making a triumphant noise, hands covered in blood, holding a crunched up bullet that glistens with Mac’s blood in the barely there moonlight and the firelight.

“I must say, Angus, that was incredibly intimate, _almost_ even more intimate than I ever thought it would be with you; what makes you so different, my sweetheart, what makes you affect me so much?” It’s like Murdoc doesn’t even need an answer, like he’s talking to himself; but Mac wants to know too, tears in his eyes, chest heaving, ribs creaking, bruises blossoming, he wants to know what he affects Murdoc like this, why Murdoc has _saved_ him, why Murdoc calls him _darling_ , calls him _sweetheart_ , calls him _his_ and why Murdoc is so desperately fervent that he’s the only one to kill Mac. “There’s just _something_ about being able to dig your fingers into a wound, feeling the blood pulsing, the _racing_ of your heart-”

Murdoc gives a shuddering breath, and his eyes are darker than ever, colour eaten up by his pupils, black in the flickering firelight, throwing his face into stark relief as his eyes linger on Mac’s tear wet temples, the open gape of his mouth, the bloodied ruin of his hair. A hand reaches for the stitching needle, and Mac’s chest stutters, feeling his heart thudding, racing in his ears, just like Murdoc had been saying, Murdocs hand steady and almost reassuring on his side.

It’s better this time, but still a line of fire against his side, leaves him gasping, crying, turning towards Murdoc and trying to _beg_ , doesn’t know if it’s to make him stop or for comfort, only knows that every time the needle passes through, each sick tug of his skin, the times when Murdoc’s steady hands leave his skin to wipe up the blood, it leaves him sick to his stomach, whimpering, eyes glassy, white noise at the back of his mind, trying to curl up, mouth open, gasping.

“Murdo-Murdoc, please, _please_ -,I can’t-,” He’s sobbing, head thrown back, adam's apple bobbing desperately, shoulders bunched together. He's got a hand clenched in Murdocs shirt, fingers clenching together, feeling the hard lines of his abdomen, anything to try and mitigate the burn, the line of fire licking up his back, curling around his side.

“You _can_ , sweetheart, you _must_ do this,” Murdoc growls, and his voice is sincere, hands steady and working as quick as they can go, slippy with blood as they must be. “One last stitch, my love, and then we’re done, _that’s_ it, sweet Angus, I knew you could do it.”

Mac lies there, still, panting, crying, _sobbing_ , arms cramped against his side, and for a moment he thinks he’s alone, that Murdoc has stitched him up and abandoned him in the dead of night, weak and trembling and crying. But then-

Warm hands wiped clean of blood as best they could touch his shoulders, thumb rubbing the skin gently, and he’s being helped into a new henley, black and smelling of cinnamon and gunpowder, fire warmed and too big, somehow familiar against his skin. He can’t help, shivering, arms limp, but Murdoc manages to manhandle him into the henley that is reminiscent of the one he woke up in two weeks ago, wide in the shoulders and draping across his chest. He leans into the touches, even more when Murdoc physically shoulders him up, hauling him until Mac is between his legs, back against Murdoc’s shoulders as Murdoc wrestles a black turtleneck over his head too. The fact that Murdoc can lift him so easily shouldn’t make fire lick up and down his spine but it does and Mac resolutely shoves that to the back of his mind.

“Can’t have you catching a cold, after all the effort I’ve put into putting you back together, can we, hmm?” Murdoc murmurs, breath warm and dry across Mac’s tear wet face. He frowns, even as his body goes limp against Murdoc’s chest further, head nestled against Murdoc’s shoulders. A wet wipe touches his face, wipes away the tears, the blood, resting against his forehead for a brief moment before pulling away.

“Tha-thank you.” Mac says quietly, and Murdoc hums, chest vibrating beneath Mac’s back. 

“You shouldn’t thank me, boy scout,” Murdoc says, amused, but his arms tighten around Mac, haul him closer, so Mac’s physically in his lap, cradled against him. “I must say, you are- quite _intoxicating_ , Angus MacGyver, and I’d make you mine on that basis alone. But-”

There’s a minute of silence, as if Murdoc can’t quite find the words, like they’re crowding behind his teeth but he can’t quite spit them out. 

“There’s _something_ about you, boy wonder, that has me ... _enraptured_. And it isn’t just the heat of your blood or the blue of your pretty eyes, and definitely not just your genius mind,” Murdoc gets his hands on Mac’s waist, _heaves_ him up so they’re face to face, Mac reliant on Murdoc to stay up, shivering beneath the full weight of Murdoc’s attention. “I can almost _smell_ your innocence, Angus, and it’s _distracting_ -”

Murdoc breaks off, breath shuddering, chest vibrating against Mac’s from where they’re pressed chest to chest, Mac almost _straddling_ Murdoc, feeling the heat of his body, the coil of his muscles, the strength it must take to hold Mac up like this. 

“I don’t-” Mac doesn’t know what he was about to say, brain seemingly dripping out of his ears; he knows he shouldn’t like this, shouldn’t like Murdoc’s attention on him, the way Murdoc twists him up insides, but _something_ about Murdoc calls him too, makes something inside of him that Mac has never been able to explain _twist_ , maybe it’s the fact that Murdoc is so obviously unlike them, that he doesn’t fit into the parameters that the world sets and so Mac wants to see what makes him tick, what makes Murdoc _Murdoc_ . A hand creeps up from his hip, big and warm against the expanse of Mac’s shivering back, over the bruise he can feel forming between his shoulder blades where the soldier's knee was. It comes up to cradle the back of Mac’s neck, squeezes at his nape, a comforting weight; which is a word he’d never thought of attributing to _Murdoc_ of all people. 

These past months though have been an exercise in shock.

“I’ve told you, boy scout,” Murdoc says, amused, as if Mac’s confusion is something he’s never seen before, as if it’s something to be savoured. “Even though you now seem to be increasingly reckless in the disregard for your own safety, and _clearly_ you’ve made yourself known as incompetent when it comes to having self preservation instincts, I have a particularly _vested_ interest in making sure you stay alive and kicking, even if it is just so I can tear your heart out with my bare hands.”

Mac honestly must be out of his mind, must have taken absolute leave of his senses, because he _laughs_ ; if anyone asks he’s going to blame this on blood loss, and maybe even having imprinted on the man who saved him from near death. Mac laughs, wincing even at the pull of his numerous stitches, at how Murdoc brings his free hand to clench and release at Mac’s hip, keeps him pressed against Murdoc’s chest.

“I thought it was going to be _shooting_ me.” Mac points out, _jokes_ , chest hitching as Murdoc peers at him with those dark eyes, narrow and far softer than they had been in that clearing, as if Mac hasn’t just argued semantics with the man who could and _would_ probably slip a knife between his ribs and leave him, bleeding and gasping, to die.

“That was before how absolutely _delectable_ I knew it was to have you gasping and arching beneath my hands, sweet Angus,” Murdoc says, and his voice is _fond._ His hands have stopped moving now, and his entire attention is on looking down at Mac, taking in the ruin of his hair, the blood on his face “I want to go for something far more …. _personal_ when I end your life, I want to see the _look_ in your eyes, the way your mouth _gasps_ . We’ve been far more _intimate_ than even sex, Angus, surely you can _sense_ the connection between us?”

It- It should sound _delusional_ , should sound like the ravings of an absolute lunatic, it should have Mac running to escape as best as he can despite probably not getting far, but Mac doesn’t know if it’s because of the bloodloss, or the fact that he doesn’t feel in danger, that he feels like he’s _safe_ around Murdoc, even after Murdoc has openly told him about wanting to cut his heart out, to feel the breath leave his body, maybe it's the half remembered conversation only weeks ago, about Murdoc hunting down the guy who'd hurt him, the dizzy dreamlike fever of Murdoc carrying him, his hand on Macs thighs, but-

“I _do_ ,” He admits, as soft as he can allow himself to be, feels how Murdoc’s hand presses against his uninjured side again, big and warm through his clothing, how his eyes are wide again, dark brown drowned out by the shadowed pupil. He presses Mac closer to him, inches apart, like he can’t bear to be parted from him. “I don’t know how, I don’t know _why_ I feel like, you’re- You’re a killer, a _murderer_ , I’m supposed to hunt you down, put you in handcuffs, but I _feel_ it, like an _itch_ beneath my skin, I keep _thinking_ about you, and it’s driving me insane, I shouldn’t _want_ you like I do, but I _do_ and I don’t understand _why_ !” This is the first time Mac has ever tried to put this into words, finds his tongue tripping on them, wonders if there is anyway to explain just what and _how_ Murdoc makes him feel; like the world has been set alight and Mac has been the one to do it, like Mac has been struck by lightning and survived it untouched, like he’s going down a crowded freeway 150mph with no breaks and no airbags and never wants to stop.

“It’s because you’re _mine_ , Angus MacGyver,” Murdoc hisses, hand ripping away from the nape of Mac’s neck to his jaw to his chin, but though the touch is rough, it doesn’t dig in, doesn’t press hard enough to bruise, just tilts his head, eyes locked, Mac’s mouth falls open, sweat beading on his forehead. He thinks Murdoc is honestly going to kiss him, is going to lick into his mouth, taste the blood there, thinks the killer is going to _devour_ him, and _God_ he must have taken leave of his senses because he doesn’t _move_ , thinks he almost would _want_ it, but Murdoc only _tsks_ , slips his hand from Mac’s chin to his cheek, hand big and spanning Mac’s temple, digging into his hair. “You weren’t mine when I first saw you, but _now_ , _now_ boy scout, you’re so irrevocably _mine_ that anything else is unfeasible. I’d keep you with me and Cassian if I knew you would stay, if I knew you would stay because you _wanted_ to, and not because I kept you there.”

Mac can feel the way Murdoc’s breathing heavily, chest heaving from where Mac is resting on him, the stark white of his eyes, how his teeth are bared, not in threat but as if he’s overwhelmed himself with his own emotions. 

Mac doesn’t say anything, takes trembling breathes, listens to the howl of the wind, the crackling of the fire.

Rather, he leans into the touches that Murdoc gives him, the slow gentle slide of his hand down Macs shivering spine, how it rests, big and heavy on the small of his back, as if to keep Mac infinitely closer, how Murdoc stares at Mac, those eyes dark and shadowed in the moonlight. Murdoc touches him with light hands that are not gentle, tender but not soft; and there's something so intoxicating about that tenderness from someone who has stated so many times he wishes to kill Mac. 

Murdoc looks at him, face shadowed, the flames flickering across his expression. His eyes are wide, just as dark, he looks at Mac like there are words that he can’t bear to say crowding behind his teeth, burning against his tongue, like they’re painful to think but even more painful to _not_ say. He looks like he wants to devour Mac, like he’d rather show the passion that he’s obviously shoving down, like he doesn’t want to give voice to the words that Mac knows are going to force themselves out.

He knows he should be worried about that, the way Murdoc always looks at him, like Murdoc is on fire and Mac is the only thing that can douse it, like Murdoc has been _starving_ for years and Mac is the only food that he could possibly stomach, like Murdoc wants the world to burn and Mac is the only balm against that wildfire intensity. It does, it makes Mac wonder about all the times that he’s read over the files of Murdoc’s kills, when he thinks of how Murdoc had been so ready to kill, to exert violence for violence, revenge for revenge; it makes him sick to his stomach when he thinks about it, how Murdoc’s first thought and reaction is towards violence and his strange connection that he feels to Murdoc isn’t because he thinks he can _change_ Murdoc, it isn’t because he thinks he can _save_ Murdoc.

Murdoc doesn’t need saving, Mac thinks. He needs redirection, he needs purpose, and Mac can understand that perhaps better than anyone, Mac can understand that down to his bones. He’ll never admit it to Jack, but he sometimes wonders what would have happened, what would have become of him if he hadn’t had his moral compass, hadn’t had Harry, had ended up in the system. Mac knows the argument against nature versus nurture, and wonders which way he would have fallen if things had been the slightest bit different. He knows the darkness inside of him, the anger, the sadness, every negative emotion he keeps carefully contained in his little filing cabinets in his mind, dreads the day that they become too full.

A hand touches his clenched jaw, tilts his head, the broad swell of a thumb smears across the sharp of his cheekbone, presses against the bloodied skin at his temple, enough to feel the pressure. Murdoc is watching him, eyes just as dark as before. He looks like he knows what Mac is feeling.

It happens between one moment and the next, the beat of a heart, the blink of an eye; Mac is pushed backwards, yelps loudly at the lightning pain that licks across his skin between his shoulder and his side, silver stars a blur to his closing eyes, the heat of the steadily crackling fire suddenly hotter against the crown of his head, arms spread eagled that come up to grab at Murdoc’s heaving sides, clutching at his shirt to feel the lean muscles, and a warm, heavy weight between his thighs, a hand grasps his chin, thrusts his head up, he cannot move for the strength of it. Murdoc is looking down at him, incensed, eyes wide, a circle of white around his iris, teeth bared in a snarl. He looks like everything Mac should not want.

“ _Look_ at me, boy scout,” Murdoc hisses, and Mac can feel the heat of his breath, the drum of his heart where Murdoc is pressed so close to him. “You are _mine_ , Angus MacGyver, and not even _death_ would be able to erase that claim, not even to another _place_ would you be able to escape. I will _find_ you, no matter how far you go, no matter how long you run, you _know_ you feel this connection, this _bond_ we share, and I will kill _both_ of us myself before I let you forget that, before you throw your life away on a gambit, before you _kill_ yourself because you think you have no value. You _belong_ to me, dear Angus, I’ve been inside you, I’ve tasted your blood, your _fear_ ; you _know_ this.”

Mac’s breathless, he’s gasping, chest heaving, stitches pulling against his gunshot wound, he feels like his ribs are been pried apart, like his heart, his _mind_ is on display, like Murdoc has crept inside the graveyard of his stomach and has laid everything out, stretched out the bitter length of his intestine to show the world everything Mac has tried to keep hidden, like Murdoc is pressing a bloodied love letter against the inside of his chest of everything Mac doesn’t want spilled out. He’s gutted, turned inside out, he is laid bare and pinned down, butterfly panic, prayer hands flat. He wants to run, wants to hide, but Murdoc has him still, keeps him there, humming bird heartbeat stuck fast in his throat. He wants to go _home_. Wants to curl beneath the chill and welcoming darkness of his bed, where he’s had so many panic attacks before, where he’s shut the world out before when it got too much. 

“Shhh, darling, I will follow you off every cliff, off every range, I will follow you and there is nowhere you can go that I wouldn’t follow you, you’re the other half of me now, dear Angus, more important than perhaps the breath in my lungs, second only to Cassian, know this, precious, I’ll have you, body and mind and soul, I’ll make you see your worth,” Murdoc leans closer, he can feel the heat of his body more than the fire now, can see the individual lashes of his eyes, the crinkle of his laugh lines, the way his mouth parts just enough that he can breathe Mac in. Mac has been set alight, and Murdoc doesn't have the want to put him out. “Sleep, dear Angus, sleep and when you next wake up you’ll be with your little guard dog, and you’ll have nothing to think of but this, of my touch, of my words, chasing around every thought you think.” 

Mac doesn’t say anything, just feels his chest heaving, swallows heavily. His stitches are burning, and he can feel the phantom imprint of Murdoc’s hand inside of him, the press of his fingers inside of the gun wound, the gush of blood. He feels a pinprick of pain at the base of his neck, Murdoc’s hand having barely moved, and he can’t even be angry, knows the sense of _too much_ pressing in on him just as the darkness surely does.

He inhales slowly, smells gunpowder, leather, _cinnamon._ He dreams of blood on the wall, smeared in the shape of a stemless rose, of hands on his waist, heart in his throat. He dreams of gloved hands, broad shoulders beneath a trench coat. He is pinned, butterfly still, thumbtacked, he can’t move because of the weight of it, dark eyes and darker hair. He gives into the darkness, a world on fire that dissipates as his lashes flutter.

Between the beat of a heart and the exhaled press of a chest against his own, Mac falls, and doesn’t think he’ll get lost when Murdoc’s hands press against his skin.

He doesn’t know what happens after, only remembers in the briefest flashes of Murdoc, clutching him close, the forest floor to his back, crackling fire at his crown. He dips in and out, dizzily, swimmingly, he’s still lying on the forest floor, but there is something different pressing against him; it feels like a gun, a sniper rifle, poised and somehow protective, he hears shouting, what sounds like Jack yelling, what sounds like Riley hollering, and he tries so hard to crawl upwards, into the light and out of the darkness but it drags him back, tendrils around his ankles. His head lifts, he sees smeared stars but he is lost all over again, Murdoc’s hands no longer anchoring him, his head hits the floor.

He rises again, feels the phantom pressure of arms against his back, beneath his knees; he’s moving steadily, hears the heartbeat thrumming in his ear; eighty three beats per minute, a beat that he knows better than even his own. Between the blond flash of his fluttering lashes, he sees the slowly lightening sky, tinged pink and pale blue, the stars fading from view, taking their secrets with them. He thinks someone calls his name, panicked, loud, but he exhales and is lost to the sea of his thoughts, dreams of a hand against his side, inside him.

He rises once more, the steady thump of helicopter blades, feels the hard press of a board against his back, hands all over him, but ones he doesn’t recognise, feels panic rising in his chest, in his belly, thinks of Jack, of Riley, and he lurches forward, upwards, the fog still clinging to him like a jealous lover, hands, hands all over him, they press him down, keep him still, a needle slips inside and though pain is a jealous thing, Mac rises, legs kicking, arms flailing. His stitches burn and his head is turning, but these hands are not the hands he wants on him. Plastic up his nose, around his throat, no _no_ , please-

A needle, and the cool rush of sedatives, he’s lost to a different darkness. This time he dreams of an explosion, of water rushing into his throat. He doesn’t dream of safety, of leather, gunpowder and cinnamon for the longest time.

Something beeps beside him, high pitched, irritating. Irritating, just like the object he can feel against his mouth, his nose. It’s plastic, lightweight, but something cool and dry is seeping out, and a hand comes up, trembling, heart beating thundering, all he can think of is back to that time, to a mask pressed heavily against his face, duct tape against his wrists, a hand in his hair, desperate lungs heaving in, throat spasming, back arching, he can’t _breathe,_ why can’t he _breathe_ , he’s drowning, he’s _drowning-_

“ _Mac, please wake up, Mac please, you need to wake up-”_ The voice sounds panicked, frantic, hands are at his wrists again, pushes them down, Mac cries out, feels like an anvil is on his chest, feels something soft beneath his wrists, but his legs are kicking, flailing, they’re trapped, kept still by something just as soft, he needs to _move_ , why are they keeping him here, what has he done to deserve this, he knows he’s not a good person, that he deserves this, but what is it always him, _why is it always him_?

He turns, he’s weightless for a second, and then hands are at his side, at his hips, and fire blooms like bruises against his ribs, something is ripping, is _tearing_ , his throat is raw, blood pools against his skin, he cries out, broken, desperate, he’s _dying_ , why won’t they _help him_ , _please_ -

“ _Back on the bed! He’s broken his stitches, and his blood pressures dropping-”_

He fades in and out, like a badly tuned radio; he thinks, randomly, of his fathers old radio, how it would fritz every time he turned the dial just a little to the right, wonders if this is what’s happening. 

“ _Mac_ ,” The voice is back, no longer as panicked, but there is fever pitch to the tone, an edge that Mac wants to soothe out, wants to reach out and touch, like it’s a physical thing. Mac should be the one hurting, not this voice. “ _Mac, c’mon man, open those baby blues, please, honey.”_

Maybe it’s the desperation, maybe it’s the hand on his forehead, how it slowly smoothes down his temple, his cheek, cups his jaw, smears a calloused thumb against the sharp clutch of his cheekbone, hand big and warm and _familiar,_ but he tries. He tries so hard. A light weight rests against his hand too, and he tries to curl his fingers, feels them twitch just so and the weight goes heavy, tightens around the body of his palm, and the hand at his jaw presses down just a little heavier too. 

“Hey, man,” a soft voice says, breath warm and dry against his chilled ear. He frowns, tries to turn his head, inhales, he expects to smell cinnamon, but all he can smell is peppermint. The gunpowder is there, but it’s overtaken by peppermint and cloves. “Open those eyes, Mackie, surely you gotta be tired of sleepin’ by now, it’s been almost a week.”

“ _Mmmh_ ...,” His mouth won’t work, throat so dry it’s like sandpaper. He turns his head further, feels the hand cling tighter to his face, slipping up into his hair. His eyelids are just so _heavy_ , his whole body is sluggish, pinned down, like he’s slept longer than he needed to. “Mmmm-mu-Murdoc?” 

There’s a stark silence at his side, even the hands on his hand and his hair has stilled, muscles tensed, the room itself seeming to have stood still. There’s a sigh, a heavy one, and a chair moves closer.

“Sorry, man, it’s only Jack, sorry to disappoint,” Jack sighs, and Mac makes a sound in the back of his throat, tries even harder to get his fogged eyes to _open_. “At least we know why there was a remote control sniper rifle standin’ guard over you when we found you, though why Murdoc was even in that forest is a fuckin’ mystery.”

It takes a few seconds, more tries that Mac would ever like to admit, but he eventually gets his eyes open, only to hiss, closing them immediately as a harsh light burns them, bright and white and _hurting_ , and Jack makes a noise of sympathy. The hand leaves briefly, and then Jack is back, having turned down the lights just a little because when Mac tries again, it’s more akin to a dull throb to the head rather than a knitting needle to the front lobe.

His head turns to the side again, Jack's hand staying in his hair, as if the man can’t bear to be parted from him so soon after waking. Jack looks… _exhausted_. Face drawn, eyes bruised beneath with lack of sleep. His mouth is a thin line that’s trying to smile but it’s tremulous, tilted at the edges, like he’s forgotten how to smile. He draws his hand from Mac’s, and there’s a small glass of chilled water in his hand, straw pressing against his lips. Mac gulps eagerly, anything to rid himself of the taste of old pennies and to wet his parched throat. He can’t help but try to chase it when Jack takes it away, but Jack shushes him, smooths his hair back from his face, and the warmth of his palm is _lovely_. 

“Are you…. okay?” Mac manages to say, voice rough, nasal cannula tickling his nose. Just _talking_ is an effort, and he’s infinitely grateful for the heavy fog that the painkillers provide, because he’s sure that the dull ache he can feel in his shoulder and throat and the expanse of his left side would be hurting far more. “You...didn’t get...hurt?”

Jack shakes his head, leans closer, tucks both his hands around Mac’s trembling one. His thumbs keep tracing back and forth over Mac’s bruised knuckles. 

“No, man, it was only you, which we should have expected.”

“What’s...the damage?” 

Jack hesitates, eyes lingering on Mac’s collarbone, and his face somehow seems to get paler, ashen, cheekbones sharp in his pallid face.

“You lost a fuckton of blood, hoss; Murdoc got you stitched up, managed to keep you from gettin’ an infection but, you needed blood man, and _Christ_ Mac, you was almost a goner, you can’t keep doin’ this man, gonna end up givin’ me a damn heart attack,” Jack shoves a hand through his hair and rubbing it across his mouth, dragging it across his stubble. He looks like he’s aged years in just those few moments. “You can’t keep gettin’ hurt, kiddo, I know it ain’t your fault, but something about this even has _Murdoc_ spooked about it with how he’s practically stalkin’ ya, and something about that nutjob being _spooked_ just doesn’t sit right with me, hoss, you know I don’t like him, but this is the second time he’s saved your life, and I ain’t sayin’ anything, Mac, but-”

Jack pauses, looks like he’s about to regret every word that’s about to come out of his mouth.

“It isn’t like that, Jack,” Mac says, tiredly, hands trembling. He curls his hand tighter around Jack’s, tries not to flinch when he tries to roll over and just ends up pulling every single muscle he’s ever hurt and the tug of his stitches. “It honestly isn’t like that, man, I just- I dunno what it is but I’m not tryin’ to kill myself.”

“There’s somethin’ called passive suicide, Mac, I know you know that.” 

Mac inhales carefully. He knows that, he honestly does. He’s _not_ suicidal, he knows he’s not. He’s _been_ suicidal, but what he feels now is not that.

It sometimes just so happens that if a car was to come close to running him over, Mac just might not step out of the way fast enough. 

When Mac eventually returns home, he finds a set of clothes on his bed, a turtle neck, a henley and trousers, all black, and smelling heavily of gunpowder and cinnamon. There’s a stylized _M_ on a small piece of paper, laid neatly atop it. 

Mac doesn’t say anything about it, only replaces his thin shirt with the henley, curls beneath the bed sheets that smell of cinnamon too. He sleeps easy for the first time since waking up at the hospital.


End file.
